BX  9843  .J6  L6  1907 
Jones,  Jenkin  Lloyd,  1843- 

1918. 
Love  and  loyalty 


LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 


LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 


JENKIN    LLOYD   JONB-S 


"Grow  old  along  with  me. 
The  best  is  yet  to  be, 
The  last  of  life  for  which  the  first  was  made. 


B 


CHICAGO 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 

1907 


Copyright  1907  By 
The  University  of  Chicago 

Published  November  1907 


Composed  and  Printed  By 

The  University  of  Chicifco  Press 

Chicago,  Ulinois,  U.  S,  k. 


TO  THE  CONFIRMATION  CLASS  ALUMNI 

OF 

ALL  SOULS  CHURCH,  CHICAGO 


In  whose  strength  I  am  strong,  in 
"whose  failures  I  am  defeated,  in 
whose  love  I  find  rest  and  peace. 


PRELUDE 

Remember  also  thy  Creator  in  the  days  of  thy 
youth,  before  the  evil  days  come,  and  the  years  draw 
nigh,  when  thou  shalt  say,  I  have  no  pleasure  in  them; 
before  the  sun,  and  the  light,  and  the  moon,  and  the 
stars,  are  darkened,  and  the  clouds  return  after  the 
rain;  in  the  day  when  the  keepers  of  the  house  shall 
tremble,  and  the  strong  men  shall  bow  themselves,  and 
the  grinders  cease  because  they  are  few,  and  those 
that  look  out  of  the  windows  shall  be  darkened,  and 
the  doors  shall  be  shut  in  the  street;  when  the  sound 
of  the  grinding  is  low,  and  one  shall  rise  up  at  the 
voice  of  a  bird,  and  all  the  daughters  of  music  shall  be 
brought  low;  yea,  they  shall  be  afraid  of  that  which  is 
high,  and  terrors  shall  be  in  the  way;  and  the  almond- 
tree  shall  blossom,  and  the  grasshopper  shall  be  a 
burden,  and  desire  shall  fail;  because  man  goeth  to 
his  everlasting  home,  and  the  mourners  go  about  the 
streets:  before  the  silver  cord  is  loosed,  or  the  golden 
bowl  is  broken,  or  the  pitcher  is  broken  at  the  foun- 
tain, or  the  wheel  broken  at  the  cistern,  and  the  dust 
returneth  to  the  earth  as  it  zvas,  and  the  spirit  return- 
eth  unto  God  who  gave  it. 

This  is  the  end  of  the  matter;  all  hath  been  heard: 


vm  PRELUDE 

fear  God,  and  keep  his  commandments ;  for  this  is  the 
whole  duty  of  man.  For  God  will  bring  every  work 
into  judgment,  with  every  hidden  thing,  whether  it 
he  good,  or  whether  it  he  evil. 

— Ecclesiastes  12:1-7,   13,   14. 


PREFACE 

"Printed  sermons  do  not  sell!"  So  say  the  pub- 
lishers, and  they  know.  Notwithstanding,  here  is 
another  "book  of  sermons;"  there  is  no  use  trying  to 
disguise  the  fact — sermons  with  the  inevitable  repeti- 
tions and  reiterations.  They  are  published  primarily 
for  the  benefit  of  the  two  hundred  or  more  girls  and 
boys  to  whom  they  were  first  delivered.  With  the 
exception  of  the  introductory  discourse,  they  are  all 
of  them  "class  sermons,"  arranged  in  the  order  of 
their  delivery.  Thus  they  represent  a  cross-section 
of  twenty-five  years  of  a  busy  city  ministry,  and  the 
volume  is  offered  as  a  humble  contribution  to  the 
quarter-centennial  celebration  of  All  Souls  Church, 
Chicago. 

The  text  for  each  of  these  sermons  is  the  class 
motto,  for  which  the  children  sought  diligently 
among  the  words  of  poet,  prophet,  ancient  seer,  and 
modern  preacher.  The  search  was  often  prolonged 
and  laborious,  but  always  delightful.  No  motto  was 
chosen  that  did  not  finally  represent  a  unanimity  of 
opinion.  Each  text  thus  seemed  at  the  time  to  be  the 
keynote,  not  only  to  the  studies  but  to  the  lives  of 
those  who  cheerfully  gave  up  their  playtime  one  after- 
noon a  week,  from  All  Souls  Day  to  Easter  Day,  that 
they  might  talk  with  their  minister  of  the  deep  things 
of  religion  as  discovered  in  the  long  story  of  human- 
ity and  the  short  story  of  their  own  experience.    It  is 


X  PREFACE 

thus  a  book  of  aspirations  and  encouragements;  it 
seeks  to  inspire  rather  than  to  analyze  the  holy  life. 
It  is  a  book  of  illustrations  and  not  of  arguments. 
To  fittingly  state  is  to  prove  the  religious  life,  for  it 
is  a  thing  of  experience  and  not  of  doctrine. 

The  conferences  that  led  to  these  discourses  frankly 
faced  and  freely  discussed  creeds  and  doctrines.  The 
things  that  divide,  the  doctrines  that  provoke  contro- 
versy, do  not  here  obtrude  themselves  because  the 
fundamentals  are  the  universals;  the  conditions  of 
nobility  are  the  realities  of  religion. 

Many  of  the  boys  and  girls  to  w^hom  these  sermons 
were  first  delivered  are  now^  men  and  w^omen,  know- 
ing the  joys  and  responsibilities  of  home-making  and 
parentage.  Their  junior  associates  are  pressing  hard 
after.  They  all  belong  to  the  larger  Confirmation 
Class,  made  up  of  those  who  would  fain  confirm 
their  faith  in  the  right,  deepen  their  trust  in  truth, 
and  make  sacred  the  claims  of  duty,  which  rest  in 
the  thought  of  the  divine  fatherhood  and  the  human 
brotherhood. 

What  is  applicable  to  one  group  of  youths  may 
prove  of  value  to  another,  and  insofar  as  these 
sermons  may  reach  the  heart  of  the  young,  they  will 
certainly  appeal  to  their  elders.  Hence  they  are 
offered  to  such  "public"  as  they  may  reach. 

Jen  KIN  Lloyd  Jones 

Abraham  Lincoln  Centre,  Chicago 
July  17,   1907 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


PAGE 


I.   Life's  Commencements.     IntroductBiy      .     .  i 

11.  The  Supreme  Quest  (1886) 21 

III.  An  Appeal  to  Youth  (1887) 37 

IV.  Ideals  (1888) 57 

V.  Helping  the  Future  (1889) 75 

VI.   Success  and  Failure  (1890) 97 

VII.   Life's  Commission  (1891) 115 

VIII.  The  Lite  in  Common  (1892) 133 

IX.  More  Stately  Mansions  (1893)    .     .     .     .  151 

X.  Into  the  Light  (1894) 173 

XL  Little  Candles  (1895) 191 

XII.  Little  Waves  (1896) 217 

XIII.  Victories  (1897) 235 

XIV.  The  Game  of  Life  (1898) 257 

XV.   The  Sources  of  Power  (1899)     ....  273 

XVI.  The  Rhyme  of  Things  (1900)       ....  291 

XVII.  About  Thrones  (1901) 309 

XVIII.    "Lincoln  Soldiers"  (1902) ;^^^ 

XIX.  The  Greatest  Gift  (1903) 353 

XX.  A  Daring  Faith  (1904) 371 

XXI.   Secret  Springs  (1905) 393 

XXII.  The  Rosary  of  a  Holy  Life  (1906).     .     .  415 

XXIII.   Character-Building  (1907) 435 


LIFE'S  COMMENCEMENTS 


RALLYING   SONG 

Comrades  dear,  the  hour  of  meeting, 

Happy  meeting,  now  is  here. 
Hand  in  hand  a  cordial  greeting 

Give  we  to  our  classmates  dear. 
Golden  are  the  cords  which  bind  us, 

Truth  and  Love  have  made  them  strong. 
And  our  joyous  hearts  beat  lighter 

As  we  join  in  happy  song. 

Refrain: 

Fling  on  high  our  glorious  banner, 
Let  its  colors  sweep  the  sky, 
While  we  sing  its  noble  watchwords, 
Freedom  and  Fraternity. 

Day  is  breaking!     Souls  are  zvaking! 

Lovelight  glows  in  eastern  heaven; 
Truth,  the  sages  taught  the  ages, 

Unto  us — a  trust — is  given. 
Great  the  task  that  lies  before  us; 

We  must  labor  day  and  night, 
Drive  the  dark  of  doubt  before  us. 

Widen  swift  the  skirts  of  light. 

Onward  ever;  fear  tve  never; 

Truth  is  bold  and  Right  is  strong. 
We  will  climb  the  heights  before  us; 

Gathering  courage  from  our  song. 
Forward  then,  for  time   is  speeding; 

Forward  comrades,  with  a  zvill. 
Heaven  is  near  us,  God  doth  hear  us; 

He  will  guard  and  guide  us  still. 

Kate  S.  Kellogg 


LIFE'S   COMMENCEMENTS 

June  days  are  full  of  congratulations  to  "sweet 
girl  graduates"  and  "brave  boy  orators."  Every  com- 
munity in  these  days  feels  a  springlike  touch  of  hope 
and  freshness  coming  from  the  schoolroom.  Thou- 
sands of  homes  are  rejuvenated  and  in  a  high  way 
reclaimed — that  is  to  say,  claimed  again  to  the  service 
of  the  ideal — by  the  achievements  of  the  schoolroom. 
Thousands  of  people  find  their  lives  recommitted  to 
sweet  and  heroic  things  by  the  persuasive  words  that 
fall  from  the  inexperienced  lips  of  boys  and  girls. 
Inspiring  is  the  thought  of  preparation  years 
ripening  into  executive  years,  as  the  fragrant  hours 
of  the  early  morning  give  way  to  the  exacting  vigor 
of  the  working  hours. 

Metaphors  abound.  The  soldier  now  fully  equip- 
ped, ready  for  battle;  the  sailor  with  cargo  all  aboard, 
ready  to  hoist  his  sail ;  the  farmer  with  his  field 
plowed  and  seeded,  ready  to  till  and  to  garner — these 
and  a  thousand  other  figures  are  being  worked  and 
overworked  on  the  graduation  platforms  of  our 
American  schools. 

I  would  not  detract  from  this  ideality.  I  do  not 
distrust  the  song  that  pulses  in  the  heart  of  the 
fledgeling  as  he  stands  on  the  brink  of  the  nest,  impa- 
tient to  try  his  wings,  drunk  with  the  glad  inspiration 
that  pants  to  test  the  joys  of  flight  and  to  know  the 

3 


4  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

freedom  of  the  upper  air;  though  I  may  know  what 
he  does  not,  that  the  brink  of  that  nest  is  not  the  start- 
ing-point to  soaring  flight,  but  that  there  will  be 
many  a  tumble  before  the  glad,  confident  voyage  be 
realized. 

There  is,  from  the  vantage-ground  of  years,  an 
undertone  of  sadness  in  all  this  congratulation  over 
"the  completion  of  study,"  "the  finishing  of  the 
course."  There  is  in  these  phrases  a  strange  irony, 
much  of  which  is  corrected  by  the  happy  old  English 
term  "commencement;"  for  this  word  suggests  a 
beginning  and  not  an  ending  of  study. 

In  too  many  lives  graduation  day  does  indicate 
a  stopping-place  rather  than  a  station  upon  the  road. 
When  the  "exercises"  are  over,  the  "examinations" 
ended,  "commencement  day,"  with  its  ephemeral 
triumphs  and  unstable  honors,  passed,  there  comes 
the  sad  disillusion  which  shows  how  necessarily 
imperfect  was  the  work  accomplished,  how  crude  and 
deceptive  the  power  assumed.  We  are  in  danger  of 
making  too  much  of  the  "diploma"  in  our  American 
schools.  The  parchment  engrossed  in  ornate  text, 
sometimes  worded  in  bombastic  Latin,  and  signed  by 
faculty  and  trustee,  often  misrepresents  more  than  it 
represents.  Life  at  twenty  is  of  necessity  an  imma- 
ture and  incomplete  thing,  however  the  examinations 
and  gradings  may  stand.  Said  Thomas  Starr  King: 
"Nobody  can  become  wise  in  the  best  college  on  this 
planet  between  twelve  and  twenty." 

Let  us,  then,  remember  that  the  graduate  is  an 


LIFE'S  COMMENCEMENTS  5 

immature  being,  physically,  mentally,  and  spiritually. 
The  strain  of  "getting  through"  overreaches  the 
mark.  The  "tasks,"  instead  of  being  behind,  are  still 
before.  That  is  a  shallow  and  abnormal  estimate  of 
life  that  encourages  the  student  to  struggle  through 
to  the  end  of  the  school  course,  then  draw  a  long 
breath,  and,  with  painful  and  dangerous  complacency, 
close  the  books  of  study  with  a  vast  show  of  relief 
and  forthwith  "begin  life"  on  lower  levels  by  vacating 
the  upper  stories  of  the  mind.  If  parents  were  half 
as  eager  to  surround  their  children  with  incentives  to 
culture  and  stimulants  to  study  after  leaving  school 
as  they  are  to  keep  them  in  school  long  enough  to 
receive  a  diploma  and  "finish"  a  course,  there  would 
be  less  need  to  bemoan  the  obvious  fact  that  many  sons 
and  daughters  who  take  honors  in  school  disappoint 
the  expectations  of  graduation  day. 

"My  son  or  daughter  can  have  no  more  time  for 
preparation;  he  or  she  must  now  go  to  work" — this 
is  a  sad  way  of  putting  it.  Such  a  boy  or  girl  is  just 
at  Life's  commencement,  and  there  is  no  good  reason 
why  the  work  and  the  study  should  not  go  on 
together,  making  of  the  future  years  growing  years. 

It  is  the  justifiable  boast  of  the  manual-training 
schools  that  a  systematic  use  of  the  hands  in  technical 
and  practical  ways  increases  the  activity  of  the  brain 
and  makes  it  more  ready  to  grasp  the  principles  hid- 
den in  books  and  out  of  which  books  are  made. 
Work  stimulates  and  emphasizes  study.  If  this  is 
true  in  school,  why  should  it  not  be  true  out  of  school  ? 


6  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

The  young  man  or  young  woman  who  assumes  that 
intellectual  activities  must  be  forgotten  in  the  so- 
called  practical  affairs  of  life,  reasons  from  very 
inadequate  premises,  and  bargains  for  intellectual 
stagnation  and  spiritual  apathy.  In  the  large  estimate 
of  life,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  mind's  maximum  is 
not  reached  on  the  sunrise  side  of  fifty.  Other  things 
being  equal,  no  one  prefers  the  opinion  of  a  physician 
at  twenty-five  to  that  of  one  at  forty-five.  The  boy 
lawyer  does  not  carry  the  weight  at  the  bar  that  the 
attorney  does  who  has  grown  gray  in  his  profession. 
It  is  an  unconscious  confession  of  the  unreality  of 
much  of  our  religion  and  of  the  artificiality  and 
conventionality  of  the  life  of  many  churches,  that 
there  is  often  a  fancy  for  young  preachers,  a  prefer- 
ence for  the  suavity  and  glibness  that  go  with 
youth,  rather  than  for  the  wisdom  and  serenity  that 
are  born  of  experience.  The  great  achievements  of 
life  have  been  accomplished  by  men  and  women  in  the 
gray  of  life,  not  in  the  downy  years  of  youth.  The 
very  reasons  we  offer  why  study  must  cease  are  the 
reasons  which  make  the  acquiring  of  knowledge  not 
only  more  imperative  but  more  possible  than  ever. 

I  would  not  dampen  the  enthusiasm  or  mar  the 
joys  of  the  commencement  hour,  but  I  would  conse- 
crate this  enthusiasm  and  perpetuate  the  joys.  It  may 
be  useful  for  graduates  to  make  a  thoughtful  study 
of  some  of  those  who  have  preceded  them  on  the 
graduation  platform.  A  college  graduate  comes  to 
his  high  moment  at  the  end  of  a  gracious  procession 


LIFE'S  COMMENCEMENTS  7 

of  white-robed  and  garlanded  youths  that  have  made 
streets  beautiful,  homes  sunny,  the  names  of  churches 
blessed.  In  grammar  school,  high  school  and  college 
he  has  joined  in  applauding  some  fourteen  or  sixteen 
such  classes  that  have  gone  before  him.  With  all 
these  happy  memories  and  radiant  pictures,  let  him 
look  back  and  see  how  many  of  the  ''graduates"  have 
pushed  their  studies  farther  into  the  science  they 
affected;  how  many  have  increased  their  acquaintance 
with  the  poets  they  quoted  in  their  graduating  essays; 
how  many  still  pursue  the  culture  they  eulogized  on 
Commencement  Day;  how  many  of  them  continue  to 
cultivate  an  acquaintance  with  the  perennial  books  to 
which  their  schools  days  introduced  them. 

If  the  result  of  such  an  inquiry  be  disappointing, 
then  let  the  past  graduate  be  a  sacred  warning  to 
present  graduates.  It  is  evident  that  the  school  dis- 
cipline did  not  sufficiently  strengthen  the  sinews  of 
the  will  so  that  they  might  contend  successfully  with 
the  dissipations  and  frivolities  of  life.  The  love  of 
culture,  the  charm  of  poetry,  the  fascinations  of 
science,  and,  above  all,  the  joy  of  production,  had  not 
penetrated  deep  enough  into  the  heart  to  become  a 
ruling  passion,  a  lifelong  impelling  power. 

Our  first  congratulations  to  the  graduate,  then, 
should  be,  not  on  account  of  what  he  has  acquired, 
but  because  of  that  which  is  yet  to  be  acquired.  His 
past  is  rich  only  when  it  makes  his  future  still  richer. 
The  opportunities  for  developing  the  intellectual  life 
from    twenty-five    to    fifty,    though    these    years    be 


8  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

enmeshed  in  hard  work  and  severe  poverty,  are  greater 
than  they  can  possibly  be  from  five  to  twenty-five.  Oh 
graduate,  I  congratulate  you  because  you  have  left 
behind  the  hothouse  methods,  the  cramming  process, 
the  hurrying  strain  of  the  schoolroom;  you  have 
completed  the  training  directed  by  others ;  now  before 
you  is  the  opportunity  of  deliberate  acquirement,  of 
soul-development,  of  painstaking  research,  of  self- 
directing  and  self-constructing  growth.  There  is  for 
you  a  margin  of  time  for  study  such  as  will  make 
great  intellectual  acquirements  possible  in  the  next 
twenty-five  or  thirty  years.  Indeed,  your  dangers  lie 
not  in  the  direction  of  too  much  preoccupation. 

Spiritually  speaking,  the  growth  of  that  boy  or 
girl  is  most  threatened  whose  future  is  most  choked 
with  privileges,  whose  life  is  to  be  cursed  with  uncon- 
secrated  leisure,  whose  strength  is  to  be  depleted  with 
too  much  "means."  Are  they  whose  lives  are  neces- 
sarily cast  amid  books,  pictures,  social  ease,  and 
material  luxury  necessarily  the  favored  ones?  The 
contrary  is  too  often  true.  From  them  the  world 
sometimes  has  least  to  expect  in  point  of  sympathy, 
self-denial,  and  helpfulness  of  hand  or  heart.  If  my 
word  could  reach  all  who  are  about  to  turn  from  the 
schoolroom  to  hard  work  and  to  poor  pay,  I  would 
say :  You  will  have  leisure  and  opportunity  in  the  next 
twenty-five  years  which  if  not  wasted,  may  make  you 
intelligent  in  some  of  the  sciences,  familiar  with  a 
few  of  the  great  classics  in  literature,  companions  and 
more  or  less  competent  interpreters  of  some  of  the 


LIFE'S  COMMENCEMENTS  9 

great  master-minds  of  humanity.  This  you  can 
accompHsh  alongside  of,  and  in  spite  of,  the  maxi- 
mum of  cooking  and  earning,  sewing,  serving,  toil- 
ing, which  the  grim  years  may  have  in  store  for  you. 
This  you  may  do  if  you  will,  and  thus  turn  grimness 
into  graciousness. 

But  in  order  to  do  this  you  must  get  rid  of  the 
delusion  of  a  "Graduation  Day,"  and  make  it  instead 
a  "Commencement  Day."  You  must  learn  to  despise 
the  diploma  that  marks  a  stopping-place,  and  to  prize 
the  diploma  that  is  the  hopeful  measure  of  ignorance 
and  an  introduction  to  the  advance  studies  of  life. 
The  school  house  is  perhaps  not  the  best  place  to  make 
brain,  albeit  a  blessed  help  in  the  process  and  the  best 
introduction  to  the  better  place.  The  college  has  no 
monopoly  of  the  instruments  of  culture.  The 
great  brain-work  of  the  world,  the  high  achievements 
in  all  departments  of  human  thought  and  research, 
have  been  accomplished  outside  of  classrooms  and 
independently  of  professors.  Experience  is  the  best 
of  schoolmasters.  The  strong  thinkers  of  the  world 
have  frequently  been  the  readers  of  comparatively  few 
books.  Culture  is  never  the  result  primarily  of  out- 
ward resources,  but  of  inward  energy.  It  would  not 
be  difficult  to  name  one  novel,  one  biography,  one 
poem,  and  one  book  of  essays,  which  might  be  com- 
passed in  a  year's  time  by  the  busiest  man  or  woman, 
if  possessed  of  the  scholar's  devotion  to  seek  the  best 
and  the  student's  fortitude  to  be  willing  not  to  know 
everything  in  order  to  be  sure  of  knowing  something 


lO  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

that  would  be  an  unfailing  source  of  strength  and 
joy  throughout  life.  This  could  be  accomplished  by 
simply  cutting  off  the  abuses  and  the  wastes  of  life. 
But  the  woman  cannot  realize  this  who  gives  her 
energies  to  the  perplexities  of  "society,"  how  to  dress, 
and  how  to  keep  up  with  the  procession.  The  man 
complacently  confesses  that  he  has  forgotten  what  he 
once  learned  at  college  or  high  school.  Then  he  was 
interested  in  geology  or  physics ;  then  he  liked  Homer 
or  Shakespeare;  but  now  he  has  had  to  give  them 
all  up  because  his  "work  is  so  exacting,"  his  "business 
is  so  narrowing,"  and  the  "competitions  of  trade  are 
so  tyrannical."  Is  it  this;  or  may  it  not  be  because 
the  restless  energy,  the  divine  hunger,  of  the  mind 
has  been  smitten  with  the  lethargic  fumes  of  tobacco 
which  he  has  wooed  with  such  dreamy  indolence, 
or  the  shallow  joys  of  the  card-table  through  the 
hours  that  might  have  been  seasons  of  delightful 
study?  He  has  had  such  a  hard  time  to  get  along 
that  he  has  had  but  little  money  for  lectures,  art, 
books,  or  church  privileges ;  but  he  has  had  money  and 
time  for  costly  indulgences  that  do  not  stimulate  the 
mind  or  expand  the  heart.  Let  such  a  one  count  up 
his  own  daily  investment,  the  self-assessed  tax  for  the 
things  which  have  interfered  with  his  growth  of  mind 
and  expansion  of  soul,  and  let  him,  confronted  by 
his  own  figures,  realize  that  he  has  bargained  for  his 
own  stupidity,  that  he  has  defeated  life  in  his  quest 
for  success,  that  he  has  pauperized  the  man  in  order 
to  make  prosperous  the  man's  affairs. 


LIFE'S  COMMENCEMENTS  II 

All  hail  the  graduates  who  on  Commencement 
Day  enter  upon  a  continuous  life-course;  who  are 
promoted  into  the  higher  university  of  the  world,  the 
curriculum  of  which  includes  the  study  of  a  woman's 
heart,  the  analysis  of  a  husband's  wants,  a  father's 
strength,  a  baby's  smile,  a  neighbor's  loyalty,  a 
nation's  need.  You  now  enter  upon  a  course  that 
will  take  fifty  years,  God  granting,  to  complete  the 
undergraduate's  work;  and  at  the  end  of  that  time 
there  will  come  another  blessed  Commencement  Day, 
when  the  graduate  enters  into  the  university  of  the 
eternal  life,  the  celestial  seminary,  where  growth  is 
still  not  only  the  privilege  but  the  duty  of  the  soul. 
Expansion  must  be  the  demand  of  heaven,  as  it  is  of 
earth. 

In  pleading  for  the  intellectual  life,  I  plead  for  the 
economic  life.  There  is  nothing  in  this  world  so 
cheap  as  intelligence,  nothing  so  inexpensive  as  cul- 
ture. The  higher  life  need  seldom  plead  the  argu- 
ment of  exhaustion:  'T  am  too  tired  to  read;  I  am 
too  sleepy  to  think  when  night  comes!"  Dear  soul, 
do  you  realize  that  you  are  tired  because  you  have 
partaken  of  no  refreshment?  The  mind  grows 
emaciated  with  the  hunger  which  beef  cannot  appease. 
The  brain  grows  drowsy  for  want  of  thought.  There 
is  physical  strength  in  brain-activity.  There  is 
money-making  power  in  poetry.  The  only  way  to 
make  your  own  life  endurable  is  to  fill  it  with  that 
which  makes  life  radiant.  By  thought  it  is  possible 
to  convert  pain  into  inspiration.     By  thought  you  may 


12  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

coin    poverty    into    wealth — a   wealth    which    thieves 
cannot  steal,  which  moth  cannot  corrupt. 

"Give  me  a  great  thought  that  I  may  refresh  my- 
self with  it,"  said  the  dying  Herder.  "Read  me  some- 
thing, something  that  has  got  meat  in  it,  something 
from  Paul,"  said  the  faint  and  hungry  Lute  Taylor, 
a  Wisconsin  poet  who  died  ere  his  lamp  was  trimmed 
to  give  the  clear  flame  that  it  was  meant  for.  I 
remember  that  once,  years  ago,  a  poor,  overworked, 
faded  and  fagged  woman  came  to  me,  literally  faint- 
ing under  the  burdens  of  life.  She  had  been  sorely 
pinched  by  circumstances.  The  hard  exactions  of  life 
had  pushed  strength  and  endurance  to  the  limit.  She 
could  not  sleep.  She  could  not  rest.  She  could  only 
work.  I  said:  "Can  you  not  read?"  "Oh,  I  have  no 
time  or  strength.  I  have  not  brain  enough  left  at  the 
end  of  my  day's  work."  "Try  it,"  I  said ;  "try 
Emerson;  take  his  essay  on  'Compensation.'"  She 
did  try,  and  slowly  on  the  lines  of  high  thinking  she 
won  her  way  back  to  peace  and  poise  and  health.  She 
learned  to  pillow  her  head  upon  the  serene  thought- 
fulness  of  this  physician  of  soul.  Many  years  after- 
wards, with  renewed  health  and  youth,  she  pointed  to 
the  treasured  volume  as  her  cure.  "This,"  she  said, 
"is  my  Bible.     It  still  gives  me  strength  to  live." 

If  the  brains  of  the  young  are  immature,  their 
moral  natures  are  necessarily  untried  and  "sappy." 
Pliant,  graceful,  susceptible,  yielding,  they  may  be 
like  the  young  sapling  emerging  from  the  twig,  but 
not  stalwart,  resisting,  commanding,  sublime  like  the 


LIFE'S  COMMENCEMENTS  13 

towering  oak  against  which  the  storm  strikes  in  vain, 
whose  deep-seated  heart  the  rifle  ball  cannot  reach. 
We  must  correct  our  unphilosophic  theory  of  the 
cherubic  quality  of  child-nature;  we  must  get  over  the 
sentimental  impression  that  youth  needs. but  wings  to 
make  it  angelic,  and  that,  if  the  "coarse  thumb  of  the 
world,"  the  dirty-handed  world,  did  not  besmirch 
them,  all  young  men  would  emerge  full-fledged 
patriots,  heroes,  prophets,  and  saints.  The  contrary 
is  true.  It  is  this  very  same  maligned  world  that 
takes  the  embryo  conscience  of  the  young  man  and 
young  woman,  oftentimes  vacillating,  selfish,  greedy, 
visionless,  and  tempers  it  in  the  heat  of  conflict  and 
the  cold  waters  of  disappointment,  so  that  in  due  time 
it  may  stand  the  test,  hold  its  edge,  and  prove  a 
nation's  defense. 

The  intellectual  life  of  man  began  before  the 
moral  life.  Our  schools  are  more  successful  in  teach- 
ing theorems  of  geometry  than  in  teaching  the  axioms 
of  the  moral  law.  But  God  has  revealed  himself  in 
the  moral  universe  in  the  same  way  as  in  the  physical 
universe.  Here  as  there  he  is  discoverable  only  by 
observation  and  investigation.  Duty  is  revealed  only 
to  the  student  of  duty.  Its  assurances  come  to  those 
alone  who  test  and  practice.  "I  hate  that  man,"  said 
the  impulsive  Charles  Lamb.  "Do  you  know  him?" 
asked  a  friend.  "Of  course  not.  If  I  did,  I  could  not 
hate  him,"  was  the  stammering  reply  of  the  tender 
heart.  Profoundly  studied,  men  cannot  be  hated,  for 
in  the  meanest  soul  there  is  the  effulgence  of  God, 


14  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

as  the  radiance  of  heaven  is  in  the  farthest  star  and 
the  heat  of  the  sun  in  the  pebble  under  our  feet. 

Just  so  one  can  be  indifferent  to  the  problems  of 
reform  and  the  moral  questions  of  the  day  only  by 
being  ignorant  of  them.  Think  of  dress  reform, 
labor  agitation,  or  the  temperance  question,  and  you 
can  smile  at  them,  "pooh-pooh"  them,  scorn  them  only 
by  cuddling  your  ignorance  of  them.  Look  into  any 
of  them,  touch  any  one  of  them  intimately, 
and  your  heart  warms  to  it,  your  head  yields  it  atten- 
tion, and  your  soul  glows  with  the  fires  of  interest  and 
enthusiasm.  Get  yourself  to  studying  any  problem, 
and  you  will  find  it  growing  on  your  hands.  Follow 
the  laborer  into  his  union,  and  note  the  divine  restless- 
ness of  those  who  have  been  too  long  contented  with 
mere  existence.  Consider  the  temperance  problem. 
Ask  not  of  the  fanatic,  but  of  the  physician  and  the 
statistician :  "What  of  this  muddy  stream  of  beer,  this 
'little  wine  for  the  stomach's  sake,'  or  for  'sociability's 
sake'?"  Let  them  tell  you  of  the  bodily  organs  bur- 
dened and  stultified  by  it.  Let  them  tell  you  of  men 
diverted  from  nobler  channels,  of  women's  lives 
pauperized,  of  homes  made  soggy  and  shallow. 
Follow  these  things  into  their  haunts,  the  swill  pud- 
dles of  our  city ;  note  the  fatty  degeneracy  in  bloated 
faces,  and  see  if  you  can  maintain  your  genteel  indif- 
ference and  your  polite  complacency  concerning  these 
agitations  and  agitators.  You  can  laugh  at  the  young 
man's  cigar  and  condone  the  boy's  cigarette  only  by 
preserving  your  ignorance,  by  keeping  your  conscience 


LIFE'S  COMMENCEMENTS  15 

in  the  sophomoric  stupidity  of  Graduation  Day  con- 
cerning them.  Take  a  postgraduate  course  in  the 
ethics  of  smoking;  note  the  spiritual  significance  of 
the  cigarette ;  trace  nicotine  in  its  fell,  though  sly  and 
slow,  journey  through  the  brain;  listen'  to  the  testi- 
mony of  the  professors  in  the  Paris  University,  who 
tell  you  that  their  smoking  students  stand  lower  in 
scholarship  than  others;  let  the  doctors  of  the  Lon- 
don Dispensary  tell  you  that  they  cannot  apply  leeches 
to  tobacco-using  patients  because  the  poisoned  blood 
promptly  kills  the  leech;  let  the  wardens  of  smallpox 
hospitals  give  the  increased  mortality  of  their  tobacco- 
using  patients;  let  Dr.  Hammond,  ex-surgeon- 
general  of  the  United  States  army,  a  conservative 
authority,  tell  you  the  pathological  effects  of  tobacco 
— and  then  see  where  you  are  landed. 

I  call  upon  you  graduates  to  take  up  these  post- 
graduate studies  in  morals,  that  you  may  gain  the 
indignations  of  active  consciences  and  the  consola- 
tions of  quickened  minds;  for  religion  and  morals, 
like  science,  find  their  inspiration  in  study.  The  so- 
called  "Revelations"  of  religion  need  to  be  corrected 
and  humanized  by  the  study  of  subsequent  ages.  The 
moral  sense  needs  training  and  developing.  Justice  is 
as  complicated  as  mathematics,  duty  is  as  subtle  as 
beauty,  and  both  must  be  pursued  in  the  same  way. 
The  virtue  of  today  may  be  the  wickedness  of  tomor- 
row. What  was  spiritual  sensibility  in  the  young 
man  or  young  woman  at  eighteen  may  harden  into 
bigotry  at  forty.     I  plead  for  postgraduate  work  in 


i6  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

morals.  Young  men  and  women,  strive  to  bring  your 
knowledge  of  right  and  love  up  to  date. 

Here  again  let  us  seek  no  shelter  behind  excuses. 
Let  us  do  our  share  of  sincere  thinking  and  of  honest 
work.  No  man  can  be  so  poor  that  he  cannot  afford  a 
clean  conscience;  and  that  only  is  a  clean  conscience 
which  is  an  enlightened  conscience.  There  is  such  a 
thing  as  damnable  stupidity.  Indeed,  all  stupidity  is 
such  when  it  is  deliberately  bargained  for.  The 
human  soul  is  a  climber,  and  only  climbers  know  the 
joys  of  life. 

But  let  me  not  overemphasize  the  dangers  of 
Graduation  Day.  Neither  the  intellectual  nor  the 
spiritual  life  is  a  thing  of  years.  There  is  never  a 
time  when  the  soul  does  not  need  to  be  allied  to  all 
that  is  forceful,  alive,  and  progressive.  There  will 
never  be  a  time  when  the  price  of  life  is  not  living, 
never  a  time  when  the  soul  may  not  press  forward 
with  youth's  ardor.  One  is  never  too  old  to  learn, 
never  too  old  to  begin  again,  never  old  enough  to 
"graduate."  There  are  no  "bread-and-butter  necessi- 
ties," no  home  claims,  no  obligations  to  party  and  to 
country,  that  are  not  enveloped  in  right,  that  are  not 
embosomed  in  duty ;  and  these  again,  I  say,  are  dis- 
covered only  by  thought,  by  patient  investigation,  by 
persistent  study.  The  soul,  like  Sarah,  is  never  too 
old  to  give  birth  to  Isaac,  the  child  whose  name  is 
"Laughter,"  the  child  of  joy,  cheer,  and  encourage- 
ment. 

In  Sw^edenborg's  heaven  the  oldest  angels  are  the 


LIFE'S  COMMENCEMENTS  17 

youngest.  The  Bible  says :  "There  is  that  which 
scattereth,  yet  groweth  strong."  This  is  the  paradox 
of  the  higher  Hfe,  the  secret  of  the  perpetual  university, 
whose  curriculum  is  endless.  Let  us  be  sorry  for  the 
girl  who  thinks  she  has  "finished"  her  studies ;  let  us 
be  ashamed  for  the  boy  who  thinks  that  he  has 
"received  an  education."  Let  us  discourage  the 
schools,  if  any  there  are,  that  are  party  to  this  infatua- 
tion; let  us  distrust  even  the  salvation  that  is  finished. 
The  soul  cannot  be  rounded  out  intellectually  or 
spiritually  by  the  time  it  is  twenty  years,  or  forty 
years,  or  ten  thousand  years  old.  Culture  is  practice 
ever  growing.  The  soul  is  ever  being  saved  out  of 
lower  into  higher  life. 

In  these  graduation  days,  then,  we  celebrate,  not 
an  ending,  but  a  commencement;  days,  not  of  dis- 
charge, but  of  enlistment.  We  do  not  close  life,  but 
we  open  it.  Let  souls  continue  to  aspire  and  struggle, 
and  not  accept  destiny  meekly.  In  these  commence- 
ment days  life  takes  a  new  lease  on  investigation, 
makes  a  new  escape  from  dogmatism.  Like  Angelo 
at  eighty,  it  dares  undertake  a  new  task,  the  building 
of  a  St.  Peter's  of  the  soul. 

I  would  not  be  blind  to  the  beauty  of  the  callow 
birdling.  But  I  remember  that  the  most  interesting 
thing  connected  with  that  bit  of  softness  in  the  moun- 
tain nest  is  that  it  is  an  eagle's  chick,  and  that  some 
day  its  pinions  will  be  strong  enough  to  rise  above  the 
storm,  to  soar  over  the  ruggedest  crag  of  the  most 
inaccessible  mountain.     We  will  not  be  blind  to  the 


1 8  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

great  beauty  of  Commencement  Day.  I  gladly  yield 
myself  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  "sweet  girl  graduates" 
and  the  "brave  boy  orators;"  but  the  most  interesting 
thing  about  them  is  that  they  do  not  know  much  now 
compared  with  what  they  are  yet  to  know.  They 
have  been  matching  rhymes  in  preparation  for  the 
poetry  they  are  yet  to  be,  if  not  to  write.  Some  day 
the  ideality  of  these  girls  will  be  precipitated  into 
wholesome  matrons,  and  the  ambition  of  these  boys 
will  make  of  the  sapling  the  great  tree  yielding  the 
toughened  and  seasoned  timber  already  alluded  to. 
Any  other  view  would  make  of  the  white  graduation 
dresses  a  Chinese  funeral  garb,  a  symbol  of  mourn- 
ing, because  it  would  mark  a  pathetic  stopping-place. 
It  may  be  asked :  Why  are  the  ideals  of  the  uni- 
versity so  remote  from  our  lives?  Why  is  the  promise 
of  our  schools  so  often  unfulfilled  in  our  living? 
Why  do  graduates  so  often  disappoint  us?  In  reply, 
every  specialist  will  offer  his  own  explanation.  One 
will  point  to  the  awful  traffic  of  rum;  another,  to  the 
narcotic  weed,  benumbing  and  stultifying  the  finer 
sensibilities  of  society;  another,  to  the  fact  that 
woman's  rightful  place  in  the  state  is  so  long  and 
unjustly  denied  her;  another  will  point  to  false  fash- 
ion, hampering  dress,  and  social  distractions;  another 
will  find  the  trouble  in  the  fact  that  the  rights  of  labor 
are  trampled  upon,  and  brain  and  brawn  are  poorly 
adjusted;  others  will  plead  the  perplexities  of  "Tariff 
Protection"  and  the  "congestions  of  trade,"  and  still 
others  the  debilitating  power  of  doubt  and  the  invad- 


LIFE'S  COMMENCEMENTS  19 

ing  demoralizations  of  heresy.  These  are  all  in  the 
right,  and  all  in  the  wrong.  It  is  not  because  any  one 
disjointed  and  dismembered  reform  is  belated,  but 
because  of  the  slowness  of  society  to  realize,  on  the 
one  hand,  that  any  violation  of  any  law  in  the  world 
is  sin  against  the  God  of  the  universe,  from  the  penalty 
of  which  no  one  can  escape  on  any  plea  of  ignorance 
or  under  any  "bill  of  exceptions,"  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  all  the  virtues  are  of  a  piece,  and  that  keep- 
ing one  of  them  demands  the  keeping  of  all  of  them. 
No  college  parchment  can  make  a  "bachelor  of 
science"  or  "master  of  arts"  out  of  a  silly  girl  or  a 
tainted  boy,  and  no  culture  of  book  or  of  laboratory 
can  make  a  gentleman  out  of  a  selfish  soul  or  a 
teacher  out  of  a  shallow  woman.  This  conception  of 
morals,  this  appreciation  of  spiritual  laws,  is  slowly 
dawning  upon  those  who  pursue  the  postgraduate 
studies  of  life  in  the  perpetual  university  of  the 
world. 

Come  forth  into  life,  oh,  young  man  and  young 
woman!  Come  close  to  the  heart  of  nature.  Find 
shelter  in  the  shadow  of  the  masters.  Find  inspira- 
tion in  the  quest  which  inspired  them.  Wordsworth's 
"meanest  flower  that  blows,"  Tennyson's  "flower  in 
the  crannied  wall,"  Burns's  "mountain  daisy,"  and 
Emerson's  "rhodora"  bloom  for  you  and  for  me, 
and  have  for  us  their  lesson  too  deep  for  tears,  too  high 
for  doubt.  The  little  sandpiper  runs  across  the  sandy 
beach,  and  the  water-fowl  wings  its  solitary  way 
through  the  blue  above,  for  you  and  for  me  as  for 


20  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Celia  Thaxter  and  William  Cullen  Bryant;  and 
they  may  teach  us,  as  them,  lessons  of  trust, 
lessons  of  hope,  lessons  of  high  emprise,  of 
bold  adventure,  of  tireless  quest.  Through 
these  and  all  helps  we  may  "forget  the  things 
which  are  behind,  stretch  forward  to  the  things 
that  are  before,  press  on  toward  the  goal  unto  the 
prize  of  the  high  calling  of  God  as  it  was  in  Christ 
Jesus,"  as  it  is  in  the  vision  that  glows  in  your  own 
hearts  on  this  consecrated  mount. 


THE  SUPREME  QUEST 


WORSHIP 

This  is  he,  who  felled  by  foes, 

Sprung  harmless  up,  refreshed  by  blows: 

He  to  captivity  zvas  sold, 

But  him  no  prison-bars  would  hold: 

Though  they  scaled  him  in  a  rock. 

Mountain  chains  he  can  unlock: 

Thrown  to  lions  for  their  meat, 

The  crouching  lion  kissed  his  feet; 

Bound  to  the  stake,  no  iiames  appalled. 

But  arched  o'er  him  an  honoring  vault. 

This  is  he  men  miscall  Fate, 

Threading  dark  zmys,  arriving  late. 

But  ever  coming  in  time  to  cr'ozvn 

The  truth,  and  hurl  zvrong-doers  down. 

He  is  the  oldest  and  best  knozvn, 

More  near  than  aught  thou  callst  thy  ozvn, 

Yet,  greeted  in  another's  eyes. 

Disconcerts  with  glad  surprise. 

This  is  Jove,  zvho,  deaf  to  prayers, 

Floods  with  blessings  unawares. 

Draw,  if  thou  canst,  the  mystic  line 

Severing  rightly  his  from  thine, 

Which  is  human,  which  divine. 

— Ralph   Waldo    Emerson 


II 

THE  SUPREME  QUEST 

Truth  is  the  only  armor  in  all  passages  of^  life  and  death. 
— Emerson 

I  have  little  use  for  age  lines  except  to  ignore 
them.  I  am  not  thinking  of  the  children  only,  or  of 
the  unmarried,  who  are  generally  counted  among  the 
"young  people."  I  am  not  thinking  of  boys  and  girls 
begging,  in  the  exuberance  of  youth,  for  a  postpone- 
ment of  life's  serious  problems,  asking  for  a  little 
longer  respite  from  the  solemnities  and  responsibili- 
ties of  life,  saying:  "Age  and  its  perplexities, 
maturity  and  its  anxieties,  will  come  soon  enough. 
Let  us  have  a  little  more  fun,  a  little  more  gaiety, 
a  little  longer  play-time."  I  am  thinking,  rather,  of 
those  who  are  becoming  conscious  of  powers 
not  yet  fully  developed,  energies  not  yet  wholly 
directed,  opportunities  not  yet  appropriated.  I 
am  thinking  of  the  young  men  and  women  deep  in 
college  studies,  and  the  boys  and  girls  in  the  happy 
delirium  of  school  days,  who  are  in  danger  of  losing 
their  way  among  their  charts  and  missing  the  deep 
significance  of  life's  sentences  in  the  confusion  of 
their  conjugations  and  their  parsings.  I  am  think- 
ing of  young  men  and  women  who  are  already  in  the 
battle  of  life,  in  some  real  fashion  wage-earners,  who 
have  not  yet  fully  realized  that  privileges  mean 
responsibilities,  that  protection  means  obligation,  and 

23 


24  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

that  the  opportunities  of  Hfe  are  taxable  under  the 
statutes  of  the  Eternal.  I  am  thinking  of  young  men 
and  women  who  have  felt,  and  dared  confess,  the 
sweet  but  awful  attractions  of  love.  I  am  thinking 
of  the  young  father  and  mother  who  have  dared 
assume  the  responsibility  of  bringing  children  into 
the  world,  sweet  and  plastic  bits  of  spiritual  wax  to 
be   formed  or  deformed  under  the  molding  hand. 

To  all  these  I  would  speak  of  the  Supreme  Quest 
of  Life;  for  my  text  is  a  spark  out  of  the  glowing 
heart  of  Emerson's  great  appeal  to  youth,  his  essay 
on  "Worship"  in  the  volume  entitled  The  Conduct  of 
Life,  whose  very  title  is  an  eloquent  and  searching 
appeal.  Listen  to  the  sweet  persuasion  of  the  full 
sentence : 

How  it  comes  to  us  in  silent  hours  that  truth  is  the  only 
armor  in  all  passages  of  life  and  death. 

This  is  the  second  exclamation.  Note  the  preceding 
one: 

How  a  man's  truth  comes  to  mind  long  after  we  have  for- 
gotten all  his  words  ! — 

So  much  is  text.     Note  the  commentary: 

Wit  is  cheap  and  anger  is  cheap;  but  if  you  cannot  argue  or 
explain  yourself  to  the  other  party,  cleave  to  the  truth,  against 
me  against  thee,  and  you  gain  a  station  from  which  you  cannot 
be  dislodged.  The  other  party  will  forget  the  words  that  you 
spoke,  but  the  part  you  took  continues  to  plead  for  you. 

I  have  been  careful  to  indicate  the  source  and  sur- 
roundings of  my  text,  because  I  am  sure  the  best 
service  my  little  sermon  can  render  you  will  be  that 


THE  SUPREME  QUEST  25 

of  sending  you  to  the  original  scripture  and  helping 
you  to  a  first-hand  acquaintance  with  this  evangel  of 
Emerson,  which  may  well  become  a  fifth  gospel  in 
your  New  Testament. 

Turn  to  the  pages  of  the  essay  on  "Worship," 
read  the  passages  which  have  been  underscored  dur- 
ing previous  study,  and  see  how  the  text  grows  on 
you.  From  the  introductory  poem  to  the  great  climax 
at  the  end,  it  is  one  great  invitation  to  you  to  yield  to 
the  Supreme  Quest,  to  seek  the  truth,  to  trust  it  when 
found,  to  live  in  its  inspirations  and  die  in  its  consola- 
tions. 

This  is  he  men  miscall  Fate, 
Threading  dark  ways,  arriving  late, 
But  ever  coming  in  time  to  crown 
The  truth,   and  hurl  wrong-doers  down. 

Nor  do  I  fear  skepticism  for  any  good  soul. 

I  dip  my  pen  in  the  blackest  ink  because  I  am  not  afraid  of 
falling  into  my  inkpot. 

The  solar  system  has  no  anxiety  about  its  reputation  and 
the  credit  of  truth  and  of  honesty  is  as  safe. 

We  are  born  loyal,  the  whole  creation  is  made  of  hooks  and 
eyes,  of  bitumen  and  of  sticking  plaster.  And  whether  your 
community  is  made  in  Jerusalem  or  in  California,  of  saints  or  of 
wreckers,  it  coheres  in  a  perfect  ball. 

We  are  born  believing.  A  man  bears  beliefs  as  a  tree  bears 
apples. 

The  stern  old  faiths  have  all  pulverized.  'Tis  a  whole  popu- 
lation of  gentlemen  and  ladies  out  in  search  of  religions 

Yet  we  make  shift  to  live,  men  are  loyal,  nature  has  self-poise  in 

all  her  works God  builds  his  temple  in  the  heart  on  the 

ruins  of  churches  and  religions. 


26  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

When  heroes  existed,  when  poems  were  made,  the  human 
soul  was  in  earnest. 

Shallow  men  believe  in  luck,  in  circumstances Strong 

men  believe  in  cause  and  effect. 

Skepticism  is  unbelief  in  cause  and  effect.. 

The  dice  are  loaded,  the  colors  are  fast  because  they  are  the 
native  colors  of  the  fleece. 

Nothing  for  nothing,  or  things  are  as  broad  as  they  are  long, 
is  not  a  rule  for  Littleton  or  Portland,  but  for  the  universe. 

There  is  no  privacy  that  cannot  be  penetrated Society 

is  a  mask-ball  where  everyone  hides  his  real  character  and 
reveals  it  by  hiding. 

The  divine  assessors  come  up  with  man  into  life. 

What  is  vulgar  and  the  essence  of  vulgarity  but  the  avarice 
of  reward? 

Fear  God,  and  where  you  go  men  shall  think  they  walk  in 
hallowed  cathedrals. 

Love,  humility,  faith,  the  glory  of  the  human  being,  are  also 
the  intimacy  of  Divinity  in  the  atoms. 

With  duty  for  his  guide  man  can  face  danger  for  the  right ; 
a  poor,  tender,  painful  body  can  run  into  flame  or  bullets  or 
pestilence. 

The  moral  ....  is  the  coin  which  buys  all  and  which  all 
find  in  their  pocket. 

Higher  than  the  question  of  our  duration  is  the  question  of 
our  deserving. 

The  weight  of  the  universe  is  pressed  down  on  the  shoulders 
of  each  moral  agent  to  hold  him  to  his  task.  The  only  path  of 
escape  known  in  all  the  worlds  of  God  is  performance.  You  must 
do  your  work  before  you  shall  be  released. 

"There  are  two  things,"  said  Mahomet,  "which  I  abhor : 
the  learned  in  his  infidelities  and  the  fool  in  his  devotions." 

Honor  and  fortune  exist  to  him  who  always  recognizes  the 
neighborhood  of  the  great,  always  feels  himself  in  the  presence 
of  high  causes. 


THE  SUPREME  QUEST  27 

These  are  sample  stones,  polished  and  precious, 
selected  by  the  appreciative,  though  not  always  dis- 
criminating, pencil  in  some  long-since-forgotten  read- 
ing. If  the  disjointed  fragments  are  so  beautiful, 
how  much  more  so  is  the  balanced  and  poised  column 
in  its  glowing  completeness! 

My  first  and  most  earnest  appeal  to  the  young 
at  this  time  is  that  they  will  read  this  essay  on  "Wor- 
ship"— read  it  and  brood  over  it  until  they  grow 
strong  enough  to  live  it  more  and  more  triumphantly, 
thus  proving  that  truth  is  the  adequate  as  well  as  the 
sole  armor  in  all  the  trying  passages  of  life  and 
death. 

But  our  text  is  no  sooner  stated  than  we  encounter 
the  old  question  of  Pilate:  "What  is  truth?"  for, 
whether  born  out  of  honest  despair  or  out  of  moral 
cowardice,  the  New  Testament  question  yet  stands, 
the  shield  of  the  flippant,  at  the  threshold  of  our 
inquiry.  With  it  the  lazy  and  the  selfish  parry  the 
thrust  of  conscience.  "What  is  truth?"  "Show  it 
to  me,  prove  it  to  me,  and  I  follow  it;  but  why  tor- 
ture me  with  the  unattainable,  or  browbeat  me  with 
the  unproved,  the  undiscoverable?" 

To  this  question  we  can  safely  make  a  few  confi- 
dent answers  that  will  strip  us  of  our  excuses  and 
make  plain  the  portion  of  the  path  of  duty  that  lies 
just  before  us,  however  obscured  the  beginning  and 
remote  the  end  of  the  path  may  be. 

Truth  is  not  a  creation  of  fancy  or  feeling. 
Human   reason   may   discover,    but   cannot   create,   a 


28  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

single  link  in  that  endless  chain  of  reality  which  is 
truth.  The  civil  engineer  must  needs  have  at  least 
two  points  outside  of  and  beyond  himself  before  he 
can  start  a  single  measuring  line  on  the  face  of  the 
earth.  If  he  makes  his  own  standpoint  one  end  of 
his  line,  he  can  run  it  in  any  direction  and  it  will 
prove  nothing  in  the  geography  of  the  world.  Truth 
has  an  objective  reality.  It  belongs,  not  to  your 
whims,  your  prejudices  or  preferences,  but  to  the 
plans  of  the  universe,  the  poise  of  things,  the  laws  of 
the  Eternal,  to  which  we  must  conform  because  we 
cannot  change  them.  Truth  is  not  what  you  wish  or 
I  want,  not  what  you  think  or  I  claim,  but  the 
order  of  things,  the  condition  of  cause  and  effect, 
the  sequence  of  law. 

Truth,  then,  is  no  projection  of  the  human  mind. 
It  is  an  embodiment  of  the  divine  order.  Humanly 
speaking,  truth  is  the  quest  of  the  human  soul;  only 
so  much  of  it  is  discovered  as  is  incarnated.  Truth 
must  be  embodied  in  purpose,  in  spirit,  in  love;  so 
truth  is  always  ethical.  There  is  a  moral  quality  in 
the  truth-seeker.  Justice  is  the  balance  of  things. 
Right  is  man's  way  of  spelling  God's  truth.  As 
truth  is  the  supreme  quest  of  life,  so  right  is  the 
superlative  test.  Duty  is  a  better  guide  than  stars  or 
statutes.  Doing  is  the  road  to  knowing;  being  is 
more  than  thinking;  indeed,  it  is  the  condition  of  all 
thought.  Not  with  the  head  alone,  nor  yet  with  the 
lieart  alone,  but  with  all  thy  soul  and  with  all  thy 
mind  shalt  thou  love  the  Lord,  who  is  truth  supreme. 


THE  SUPREME  QUEST  29 

But  the  young  may  feel,  if  they  do  not  urge,  the 
demurrer  that  truth  is  anything  but  an  armor  in  time 
of  battle,  or  a  defense  in  time  of  need.  Whether  you 
study  life  at  short  range  and  note  how  it  is  with 
your  neighbor,  or  study  it  at  long  range  and  mark 
the  ways  of  history,  you  have  a  right  to  the  suspicion 
that  truth  leads  to  dangers  dire  and  persistent.  Truth 
is  a  menace  to  comfort,  a  handicap  in  the  race  of  life. 
Truth  is  inconvenient  in  "society,"  as  every  ambi- 
tious wife  or  mother  knows.  Truth  seems  to  be  well- 
nigh  impossible  in  trade,  as  nearly  every  business 
man  unblushingly  confesses.  Truth  makes  one  poor 
and  keeps  one  poor.  Truth  makes  enemies,  ostra- 
cizes her  devotees,  and  has  sacrificed  her  prophets 
on  the  scaffold,  at  the  gibbet,  and  on  the  cross.  Said 
James  Freeman  Clarke :  "All  reformers  have  been 
hated  and  persecuted  by  those  whom  they  desired  to 
reform."  Selfishness  is  the  recognized  law  of  com- 
merce, and  self -protection  and  self -advancement, 
rivalry  and  competition,  bloody  wars  and  relentless 
conquests,  have  marked  the  road  to  national  power. 
They  indicate  the  price  paid  for  dominion, 

Renan  calls  attention  to  the  interesting  testimony 
of  language  to  this  grim  law.  He  tells  us  that  the 
old  Hebrews  had  one  word  for  "gentle"  and  for 
"poor,"  and  that  "unfortunate"  and  "pious," 
"oppressed"  and  "humble,"  "poor"  and  "holy,"  were 
interchangeable  words  in  the  vocabulary  of  Israel. 
He  adds  that,  when  once  in  his  oriental  travels  he 
spoke  well   of   the   inhabitants   of  a  certain   village. 


30  il  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

his  dragoman  replied:  "It  is  not  surprising,  they 
are  all  poor  people."  On  the  other  hand,  the  words 
"rich"  and  "strong"  came  also  to  mean  "cruel"  and 
"exorbitant,"  in  the  speech  of  Jewry. 

No,  it  hardly  appears  that  truth  is  an  armor  effec- 
tive in  the  physical,  social,  or  intellectual  warfare  of 
this  world.  The  young  mother  feels  this  when  she 
unconsciously  becomes  more  solicitous  that  her  child 
should  learn  to  dance  than  that  it  should  know  the 
Decalogue.  She  may  be  shocked  at  this  way  of  put- 
ting it,  but  she  will  contrive  to  give  more  personal 
attention  to  the  former  than  to  the  latter.  The  young 
husband  feels  it  when  he  seeks  the  club  and  its  sanc- 
tions, rather  than  the  church  and  its  checks  and 
rebukes,  its  warnings  and  its  inspirations.  The  man 
of  politics  feels  it  when  he  serves  expediency  rather 
than  justice,  seeks  to  lean  on  public  opinion  rather 
than  to  lead  it  or  defy  it,  or  draws  a  wide  distinction 
between  a  "safe  leader"  and  the  prophet  and  reformer. 

And  yet  all  this  is  but  a  superficial  and,  in  the 
long  run,  a  false  reading  of  the  laws  of  life.  Even 
the  coarser  and  lower  interests  of  life  cannot  be  per- 
manently served  by  anything  but  truth.  Society  fails 
in  the  end  to  take  care  of  her  unscrupulous  devotees. 
The  flippant  man  and  the  silly  woman  go  to  their 
own  place  in  spite  of  all  their  "frills"  and  "func- 
tions," their  "receptions,"  their  amusements,  and 
their  etiquette.  Even  in  business  the  scales  of 
trade  are  made  of  steel ;  the  stern  hand  of  fate  lays 
ultimate  hold  of  the  unscrupulous  peculator  and  the 


THE  SUPREME  QUEST  31 

reckless  speculator,  and  proves  that  even  here  "hon- 
esty is  the  best  policy." 

And  the  time  is  coming,  if  it  is  not  already  here, 
when  the  president  and  the  prophet  must  stand  in  the 
same  pair  of  shoes,  and  the  statesman  must  lead 
and  not  follow  public  opinion.  The  masses  would 
fain  hail  their  representatives  in  the  van.  rather  than 
beckon  them  up  from  the  rear.  The  higher  concep- 
tion of  government  is  a  co-ordination  of  the  people 
in  an  effort  to  bring  the  life  of  the  many  more  and 
more  to  a  level  with  the  attainments  of  the  few;  in 
other  words,  to  actualize  the  ideal.  Thus  the  former 
must  also  be  the  reformer  of  public  morals  and 
ideals.  The  legislative  department  must  become  a 
school  of  government;  the  judicial  department  must 
represent  the  heart  as  well  as  the  science  of  justice; 
and  the  executive  must  be,  not  simply  the  servant  of 
the  people,  but  the  interpreter  of  the  people's  life, 
the  guardian  of  their  higher  interests,  the  leader  and 
not  the  follower  of  the  loyal  masses. 

This  theory  of  government  is  vindicated  by  his- 
tory. No  fertility  of  acres,  no  prosperity  of  com- 
merce, no  achievement  on  the  battlefield,  has  ever 
yet  made  a  nation  honorable;  much  less  made  it 
permanent  in  the  annals  of  the  world. 

Let  the  story  of  Israel  once  and  for  all  answer  as 
illustration  and  proof  of  this  statement,  and  let 
Renan  state  the  case  for  me : 

The  thinkers  of  Israel  were  the  first  to  revolt  against  the 
injustice  of  the  world,  to  refuse  their  submission  to  the  inequali- 


32  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

ties,  the  abuses,  and  the  privileges  without  which  there  can 
neither  be  an  army  nor  a  strong  society.  They  compromised  the 
existence  of  their  petty  nationality,  but  they  founded  the  religious 
edifice  which,  under  the  name  of  Judaism,  Christianity,  or  Islam- 
ism,  has  served  as  a  refuge  for  humanity  down  to  the  present 
day.  Here  we  have  a  lesson  upon  which  modern  nations  cannot 
reflect  too  much.  The  nations  which  abandon  themselves  to 
social  questions  will  perish,  but,  if  the  future  belongs  to  such 
questions,  it  will  be  a  grand  thing  to  have  died  for  the  cause 
which  is  destined  to  triumph.  All  the  plain,  sensible  people  of 
Jerusalem,  about  the  year  500  b.  c,  were  furious  with  the  prophets, 
who  rendered  all  military  or  diplomatic  action  impossible.  What 
a  pity,  nevertheless,  it  would  have  been  if  these  sublime  madmen 
had  been  arrested !  Jerusalem,  perhaps,  would  have  remained 
for  a  littje  longer  the  capital  of  an  insignificant  kingdom;  but 
she  would  not  be  the  religious  capital  of  humanity. 

Illustrations  crowd.  The  pages  of  history  are 
resplendent  with  the  names  of  those  who  have 
proved  the  sufficiency  of  truth  as  an  adequate  armor 
in  all  passages  of  life  and  death.  If  ever  a  man  fell 
on  evil  times,  it  was  Jeremiah.  He  had  to  witness 
the  severest  ordeal  of  a  patriot  and  a  prophet.  He 
had  to  stand  by  and  see  his  country  invaded  by  a 
foreign  foe,  until  the  capital  city  was  sacked,  burned, 
and  left  in  desolation.  He  saw  his  nation  grow 
degenerate  under  the  corrupting  influences  of  alien 
peoples,  and  her  religious  altars  neglected  and 
deserted  by  her  own  children.  He  suffered  every 
indignity  possible  from  those  high  in  office  and  from 
the  servile  multitude;  he  was  pilloried  in  the  public 
square ;  the  dungeon  in  the  prison  keep  was  not  terrible 
enough  for  him,  and  he  was  lowered  by  ropes  into  a 


THE  SUPREME  QUEST  33 

muddy  cistern;  and  still  he  persisted  in  singing  clear 
the  hymns  of  faith,  testifying  to  the  truth  as  he  saw 
it.  It  was  his  message,  written  not  upon  parchment, 
but  upon  the  lives  of  men  and  women — aye,  written 
in  his  own  enkindling  life — that  permeated  the  walls 
of  Babylon,  eluded  her  armies,  defied  loneliness  and 
death,  within  half  a  century  brought  Israel  back  to 
her  lost  city,  and  with  a  new  generation  rebuilded  her 
temples  and  made  Jesus  and  his  disciples  possible. 

Dropping  down  through  six  hundred  or  more 
years  of  troublesome  times,  we  come  upon  another 
Jew  who,  according  to  his  own  estimate  at  least,  was 
weak  of  body  and  insignificant  of  presence,  ever 
with  "a  thorn  in  the  flesh."     He  writes  of  himself: 

In  labours  more  abundant,  in  stripes  above  measure,  in 
prisons  more  frequent,  in  deaths  oft. 

Of  the  Jews  five  times  received  I   forty  stripes  save  one. 

Thrice  was  I  beaten  with  rods,  once  was  I  stoned,  thrice  I 
suffered  shipwreck,  a  night  and  a  day  have  I  been  in  the  deep. 

In  journeyings  often,  in  perils  of  waters,  in  perils  of 
robbers,  in  perils  by  mine  own  countrymen,  in  perils  by  the 
heathen,  in  perils  in  the  city,  in  perils  in  the  wilderness,  in  perils 
in  the  sea,  in  perils  among  false  brethren ; 

In  weariness  and  painfulness,  in  watchings  often,  in  hunger 
and  thirst,  in  fastings  often,  in  cold  and  nakedness. 

Besides  those  things  that  are  without,  that  which  cometh 
upon  me  daily,  the  care  of  all  the  churches. 

But  it  is  the  same  joyful  story  of  a  glad 
triumphant  life.  It  was  Paul  that  was  the  founder 
of  organic  Christianity.  He,  more  than  any  other 
man  the  world  has  ever  known,  I  believe,  succeeded 


34  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

in  proving  that  the  rehgious  instinct  is  more  funda- 
mental than  race  inheritance,  class  distinctions,  or 
intellectual  conceptions.  He  was  the  great  liberty 
advocate  in  the  story  of  monotheism ;  he  was  the  high 
bridge  over  which  Asiatic  idealism  passed  and  took 
possession  of  Europe,  over  which  Hebrew  prophecy 
passed  into  Christian  institutions.  His  spirit,  so 
loyal  to  truth  as  he  saw  it,  made  him  the  first  great 
cosmopolitan  in  religion.  In  his  hands  religion  began 
to  be  universal  in  its  objective  manifestations  as  well 
as  in  its  subjective  principles.  Paul  fought  and  con- 
quered, suffered  and  triumphed,  with  only  truth  for 
an  armor. 

I  have  thus  put  Jeremiah,  the  true  forerunner  of 
Jesus,  and  Paul,  the  greatest  apostle  of  the  Christ, 
before  you  that  we  may  see  standing  between  the  two 
in  truer  perspective  the  great  central  witness  of  all 
history  to  the  vitality  and  reality  of  my  text.  This 
"man  of  sorrow,"  this  man  born  in  a  peasant  home, 
the  child  of  a  carpenter,  the  consort  of  fishermen,  the 
missionary  of  the  roadside,  the  friend  of  sinners, 
cast  out  by  the  church,  outlawed  by  the  state,  was 
poorer  than  the  birds  of  the  air  and  the  foxes  of  the 
rocks;  for  in  life  he  had  "no  place  whereon  to  lay  his 
head,"  and  in  death  his  head  bore  a  crown  of  thorns 
and  rested  on  the  upright  of  a  cross  to  which  were 
nailed  his  hands  and  feet.  And  still  it  is  he,  thus 
despised  and  defeated,  that  has  been  the  visible  wit- 
ness of  God  to  man,  the  representative  of  the  Father 
of  souls  to  untold  millions  throuo-h  nineteen  centuries 


THE  SUPREME  QUEST  35 

of  mortal  time.  And  today  that  loyal  life  illuminates 
parable  and  beatitude  so  that  they  shine  in  prison  cell 
and  in  royal  courts,  rebuking  kings  on  their  thrones 
and  upholding  beggars  in  their  rags.  Yea,  verily, 
truth  is  the  only  adequate  armor  in  life!. 

And  so  is  it  in  death.  Death  is  the  least  of  the 
concerns  of  the  truth-lover.  Death  has  no  terror  to 
the  truth-seeker.  Aye,  to  him  there  is  no  death,  only 
a  deepening  of  the  mystery  that  is  ever  present  and 
that  is  ever  being  solved  to  the  loyal. 

I  know  not  where  his  islands  lift 

Their  f ronded  palms  in  air ; 
I  only  know  I  cannot  drift 

Beyond  his  love  and  care. 

This  is  the  swan-song  of  the  truth-lover.  He  is 
incurious  as  to  the  beyond,  knowing  that  there  is 
more  of  mystery  and  marvel,  more  of  power  and 
beauty,  more  of  God  and  man,  in  this  present 
moment  than  the  human  soul  can  fathom.  Why, 
then,  be  so  impatient  for  more;  why  so  faithless 
because  of  the  more  astounding  mystery? 

Let  us  seek  this  satisfying  and  abiding  wealth; 
let  us  know  the  strength  that  cannot  wane,  and 
rejoice  in  the  peace  that  cannot  be  taken  away  from 
us.  Clad  with  this  armor  of  truth,  we  can  do  with- 
out many  things,  and  the  few  things  that  we  have 
will  go  far.  There  is  no  plenty,  even  of  the  cheapest 
and  the  coarsest  kind,  without  wisdom,  and  with  wis- 
dom there  is  no  poverty  so  dire  but  there  will  be  a 
margin  of  time  for  thought,  for  love,  for  duty. 


36  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Clad  in  this  armor  of  truth,  we  are  indeed  equal 
to  every  passage  in  life  or  in  death;  but  without  it  we 
are  indeed  inadequate  to  the  simplest  duty,  weak  in 
the  presence  of  the  meanest  temptation,  peevish  and 
selfish  in  the  presence  of  the  divinest  revelations  of 
love  and  hope  and  faith. 


AN  APPEAL  TO  YOUTH 


RABBI  BEN  EZRA 

Grow  old  along  with  me! 

The  best  is  yet  to  be, 
The  last  of  life,  for  which  the  fifst  was  made: 

Our  times  are  in   his  hand 

Who  saith,  "A  whole  I  planned, 
Youth   shozvs   but   half;    trust   God;   see   all   nor   be   afraid. 

Then,  welcome  each  rebuff 

That  turns  earth's  smoothness  rough. 
Each  sting  that  bids  nor  sit  nor  stand  but  go! 

Be  our  joys  three-parts  pain! 

Strive,  and  hold  cheap  the  strain; 
Learn,  nor  account  the  pang;  dare,  never  grudge  the   throe! 

For  thence — a  paradox 

Which  comforts  while  it  mocks, — 
Shall  life  succeed  in  that  it  seems  to  fail: 

What  I  aspired  to  be, 

And  zuas  not,  comforts  me: 
A  brute  I  might  have  been,  but  would  not  sink  i'  the  scale. 

Therefore   I   summon    age 

To  grant  youth's  heritage. 
Life's  struggle  having  so  far  reached  its  term: 

Thence  shall  I  pass,  approved 

A  man,  for  aye  removed 
From  the  developed  brute;  a  God  though  in  the  germ. 

— Robert  Browning 


Ill 

AN  APPEAL  TO  YOUTH 

Grotv  old  along  with  me! 
The  best  is  yet  to  he, 
The  last  of  life,  for  tvhich  the  first  was  made. 

— From  Browning's  "Rabbi  Ben  Ezra" 

Many  think  that  the  genius  of  Robert  Browning 
achieved  its  highest  results  in  the  poem  entitled 
"Rabbi  Ben  Ezra."  Be  that  as  it  may,  this  poem 
would  certainly  stand  in  almost  any  possible  list  of 
the  ten  great  short  poems  in  the  English  language. 
To  my  mind  it  stands  next  to  Browning's  "Saul"  in 
religious  power  and  ethical  insight.  It  is  a  great  lyric 
of  the  thoughtful  soul,  a  hymn  of  religious  philos- 
ophy. In  it  is  compacted  in  matchless  verse  the 
mature  wisdom  of  a  mind  trained  by  observation, 
sympathy,  and  study.  So  rich  is  it  in  thought  that 
we  forget  the  poetry  and  study  it  as  philosophy;  so 
rhythmic  is  it  in  its  song  that  we  forget  its  philosophy 
and  delight  in  it  as  psalmody. 

"Rabbi  Ben  Ezra"  was  first  published  in  1864, 
when  the  poet  was  fifty-two  years  of  age.  But  he 
had  not  forgotten  the  inspirations  and  aspirations  of 
his  youth.  It  is  the  mature  man's  version  of  the 
intoxicating  vision  of  the  boy  as  expressed  in 
"Paracelsus,"  a  poem  published  in  1835,  when 
Robert  Browning  was  twenty-three  years  of  age.     In 

39 


40  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

"Rabbi  Ben  Ezra"  experience  not  only  justifies  the 
high  hopes  and  the  apparently  wild  purposes  of 
youth,  but  enlarges  upon  these,  presents  with  firmer 
grasp,  states  with  more  deliberate  accent,  and  counts 
in  still  more  rhythmic  numbers  that  conception  of  the 
life  of  man  which  makes  it  an  integral  part  of  the 
life  of  God,  and  which  not  only  rests  upon  the  hopes 
of  the  mortal  as  a  pledge  of  immortality,  but  makes  of 
mortal  experiences  a  part  of  the  immortal  life  already 
begun. 

Into  the  mouth  of  the  great  mediaeval  rabbi, 
Robert  Browning  put  his  philosophy  of  life — a  philos- 
ophy that  finds  the  great  declarations  of  Israel's 
greatest  prophets  justified  and  verified  in  human 
history  and  by  modern  science. 

This  poem  cannot  be  adequately  measured  in  a 
Sunday  sermon.  It  is  not  to  be  mastered  in  a  college 
classroom  or  disposed  of  as  an  exercise  in  English 
literature.  It  is  to  be  interpreted  only  by  experience. 
Its  power  and  beauty  work  upon  the  soul  only  when 
that  soul  lends  itself  to  profound  emotion,  is  moved 
by  high  aspirations,  or  plowed  by  deep  disappoint- 
ments. This  poem  reaches  from  the  ecstasies  of  the 
heart  to  the  perplexities  of  the  head,  and  the  anguish 
and  humiliation  of  conscience.  It  challenges  study 
in  many  directions.  It  baffles  the  classifications  of 
Browning  clubs  and  Browning  interpreters ;  you  will 
find  it  now  in  the  list  of  Jewish  poems,  again  among 
religious  poems,  the  poems  of  evolution,  poems  of 
philosophy,  or  the  poems  of  faith. 


AN  APPEAL  TO  YOUTH  41 

For  my  present  purpose,  I  shall  dwell  upon  this 
poem  as  an  appeal  to  youth — the  word  of  a  man  in 
middle  life  to  the  young  men  and  women  who  are 
following  hard  after  him.  The  poet  on  the  table- 
lands of  human  life,  the  serene  maximum  of  which  is 
termed  middle  age,  looks  back  at  the  feverish  life  of 
boys  and  girls,  sees  the  distraught  years  of  youthful 
passion  and  ambition,  and  speaks  to  them  in  the 
accents  of  a  sage,  bidding  them  be  of  good  cheer,  and 
to  push  on,  "see  all  nor  be  afraid."  For  he  sees, 
what  they  may  not  surmise,  that  life  is  one  continu- 
ous whole,  toward  which  each  event,  emotion,  and 
moment  contribute — a  whole  that  is  planned  by  the 
Infinite  Mind. 
Youth  shows  but  half;   trust  God:   see  all,  nor  be  afraid. 

Our  poet  is  no  contemner  of  youth;  he  would  not 
dampen  its  enthusiasm,  or  even  stay  its  restlessness; 
he  sees  the  hesitation,  the  distractions,  the  child-like 
— or,  if  you  please,  the  childish — daintiness  that 
knows  not  which  rose  to  cull,  which  lily  to  leave, 
and,  while  admiring  stars,  finds  neither  Jove  nor 
Mars  quite  satisfying. 
Mine  be  some  figured  flame  which  blends,  transcends  them  all. 

All  this   is   a  hopeful   sign  to  our  poet;   instead   of 
remonstrating,  he  "prizes  the  doubt" 

Low  kinds  exist  without, 
Finished  and  finite  clods,  untroubled  by  a  spark. 

He  would  not  have  youth  imitate  the  stolidity  of  the 
"crop-full  bird"   or  the   complacency  of  the   "maw- 


42  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

crammed  beast."  This  would  indeed  be  a  "poor  vaunt 
of  life,"  which  is  meant  for  some  higher  purpose 
than  "to  feed  on  joy."    His  cry  to  the  youth  is  rather: 

Rejoice  we  are  allied 

To   that   which   doth   provide 
And   not    partake,    effect    and    not    receive ! 

A  spark  disturbs  our  clod; 

Nearer  we  hold  of  God 
Who  gives,  than  of  His  tribes  that  take,  I  must  believe. 

Then,  welcome  each  rebuff 

That  turns  earth's  smoothness  rough, 
Each  sting  that  bids  nor  sit  nor  stand  but  go ! 

Be  our  joys  three-parts  pain ! 

Strive,  and  hold  cheap  the  strain; 
Learn,  nor  account  the  pang;  dare,  never  grudge  the 
throe ! 

And,  though  pain  end  in  pain,  though  the  strain 
may  not  achieve,  and  the  pang  and  the  throe  fail  to 
realize,  still  he  would  say:     "It  is  well,  very  well." 

Here  we  come  upon  one  of  the  most  fundamental 
principles  of  Browning.  His  superlative  message  to 
youth  is  that  results  are  of  minor  importance,  and 
that  aim  is  not  only  the  higher  test,  but  the  only  true 
measure  of  life.     In  "Saul"  he  says: 

'Tis  not  what  man  Does  which  exalts  him,  but  what  man 
Would  do. 

In  the  "Inn  Album" : 

Better  have  failed  in  the  high  aim,  than  vulgarly  in  the  low 
aim  succeed. 

He  would  say  to  young  men  and  women :     "The 


AN  APPEAL  TO  YOUTH  43 

things  you  are  least  capable  of  measuring  are  the 
alleged  failures  of  life."  His  cry  is:  "Beware  of 
alleged  successes.  Here  more  than  anywhere  else  you 
need  to  take  counsel,  not  of  flesh  and. blood,  but  of 
the  spirit  within.  Earthly  failures  may  and  do  con- 
tribute to  heavenly  successes." 

All  men  strive,  and  who  succeed? 

What    hand    and   brain   went    ever    paired? 
What  heart  alike  conceived  and  dared? 
What  act  proved  all  its  thought  had  been? 
What  will  but  felt  the  fleshly  screen? 

It  is  the  low  man  that  succeeds,  the  high  man  that 
fails. 

That  low  man  goes  on  adding  one  to  one, 

His  hundred's  soon  hit : 
This   high   man,   aiming  at   a  million, 

Misses  an  unit. 

These  quotations  gleaned  from  other  poems  find 
their  climax  in  the  more  splendid  lines  of  Ben  Ezra : 

What  I  aspired  to  be. 
And  was  not,  comforts  me : 
A  brute  I  might  have  been,  but  would  not  sink  i'  the  scale. 

Not  on  the  vulgar  mass 

Called  "work,"  must  sentence  pass, 
Things  done,  that  took  the  eye  and  had  the  price; 

O'er  which,   from  level  stand. 

The  low  world  laid  its  hand, 
Found  straightway  to  its  mind,  could  value  in  a  trice : 

But  all,  the  world's  coarse  thumb 
And  finger  failed  to  plumb. 
So  passed  in  making  up  the  main  account; 


44  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

All  instincts  immature, 

All  purposes  unsure, 
That   weighed    not    as    his    work,    yet    swelled    the    man's 
amount. 

Thoughts  hardly  to  be  packed 

Into  a  narrow  act. 
Fancies  that  broke  through  language  and  escaped; 

All  I  could  never  be. 

All,  men  ignored  in  me, 
This,  I  was  worth  to  God,  whose  wheel  the  pitcher  shaped. 

To  realize  the  good  in  this  struggle,  we  must 
learn  to  value  the  "past  profuse"  that  reveals 
power  and  lifts  us  now  to  the  love  that  helps  perfect 
us.  The  poet  bids  youth  rejoice  in  its  flesh,  which  is 
the  "rose-mesh"  of  the  soul : 

Let  us  not  always  say, 
"Spite  of  this  flesh  to-day 
I  strove,  made  head,  gained  ground  upon  the  whole !" 
As  the  bird  wings  and  sings. 
Let  us   cry,  "All   good  things 
Are  ours,  nor  soul  helps  flesh  more,  now,  than  flesh  helps 
soul !" 

It  is  by  help  of  the  body,  not  in  spite  of  the  body, 
that  we  find 

A  man,  for  aye  removed 
From  the  developed  brute;  a  God  though  in  the  germ. 

Thus  it  is  that  through  the  first  twenty-five 
stanzas  of  the  poem  old  age  vindicates  youth,  justi- 
fies its  restlessness,  rejoices  in  its  passions,  sees  it 
enriched  by  its  inheritance  and  enthroned  in  nature, 
the  soul  set  in  flesh  as  the  diamond  is  set  in  gold. 
This  because  it  is  a  preparation  for  the  next  thing. 


AN  APPEAL  TO  YOUTH  45 

As  it  was  better,  youth 

Should  strive,  through  acts  uncouth, 
Toward  making,  than  repose  on  aught  found  made! 

So,  better,  age,  exempt 

From    strife,    should    know,    than  -tempt 
Further.    Thou  waitedst  age :  wait  death  nor  be  afraid. 

All  this  leads  up  to  the  cHmax  of  the  poem,  which 
borrows  its  figure  from  Isaiah,  Paul,  and  the  pagan 
poet  Omar  Khayyam.  Here  the  poet  sees  huinan 
life  shaped  by  the  divine  hand  as  the  potter  shapes 
the  clay  on  the  flying  wheel.  Mid  the  "dance 
of  plastic  circumstance"  the  soul  receives  its  bent,  is 
tried,  turned,  impressed,  decorated,  not  for  the  sake 
of  the  decoration  or  the  shape,  but  for  the  higher 
uses  of  the  cup  in  the  Master's  hand  to  slake  the 
thirst  of  infinite  being  when  no  longer  earth's  wheel 
is  needed.  Then  youth  reaches  its  divinest  prayer  as 
it  yields  itself  to  the  final  test  in  the  closing  words  of 
our  poem: 

So,  take  and  use  Thy  work : 

Amend  what  flaws  may  lurk, 
What  strain  of  the  stuff,  what  warpings  past  the  aim! 

My  times  be  in  Thy  hand  ! 

Perfect  the  cup  as  planned ! 
Let  age  approve  of  youth,  and  death  complete  the  same! 

So   much    for   an    introduction    to    the    Browning 
sermon  on  the  text: 

Grow   old   along  with   me ! 
The  best  is  yet  to  be. 

The  appeal   to   youth   is    found   in   the   invitation   to 
accept  the  proffered  task;  not  with  stoic  resignation 


46  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

but  with  eager  enthusiasm;  not  with  calculating 
resignation,  but  with  that  "fierce  energy"  in  which 
Paracelsus  rejoiced  as  the  adequate  warrant  for  the 
venturesome  soul  that  dares  plunge  like  the  diver  in 
his  search  for  pearls.  The  prize  is  well  worth  the 
adventure. 

Perhaps  I  should  do  well  to  stop  here.  Certainly 
I  shall  do  ill  if  I  divert  your  minds  from  the  match- 
less sermon  which  Robert  Browning  put  into  the 
mouth  of  the  great  Jewish  sage,  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra, 
who  was  born  in  Toledo,  Spain,  about  the  year  1090 
A.  D.,  and  who  died  after  having  been  for  some 
seventy-eight  years  a  wanderer  on  the  face  of  the 
earth,  as  the  wiser  men  of  those  days  had  to  be.  He 
won  for  himself  permanent  fame  as  philosopher, 
astronomer,  physician,  and  poet.  Contemporary 
scholars  honored  him,  and  he  is  described  in  the  old 
records  as  having  "indefatigable  ardor  and  industry 
in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge."  But  he  was  driven 
with  his  co-religionists  from  his  native  land,  which, 
alas,  has  been  so  blighted  by  a  passion  for  persecu- 
tion. He  drained  the  cup  of  failure  to  its  dregs.  His 
lack  of  "success,"  as  the  word  goes,  was  so  monu- 
mental that  he  said:  "The  stars  are  against  me.  If 
I  sold  shrouds,  none  would  die;  if  candles  were  my 
wares,  the  sun  would  not  set  until  the  day  of  my 
death."  He  wrote  of  himself:  "As  a  withered  leaf, 
I  roved  far  away  from  my  native  land  of  Spain  and 
went  to  Rome  with  a  troubled  soul." 

Recent    students    discover    evidence    that    Robert 


AN  APPEAL  TO  YOUTH  47 

Browning  found  his  own  wisdom  strikingly  phrased 
in  the  wise  words  of  this  hunted  Jew,  who  wrote  out 
of  these  humihating  faikires :  "Man  is  not  a  bird  or 
beast  to  find  joy  solely  in  feasting."  The  divine 
spark  within  us  is  nearer  to  God  than  are  the  recipi- 
ents of  his  inferior  gifts.  So,  our  rebuffs  are  stings 
to  urge  us  on,  our  strivings  are  a  measure  of  ulti- 
mate success;  aspiration,  not  achievement,  divides 
us  from  the  brute.  Says  a  modern  biographer: 
"While  this  remarkable  man  was  running  from  east 
to  west  and  from  north  to  south,  his  mind  remained 
firm  as  to  principles  he  had  once  for  all  accepted  as 
true;  his  advocacy  of  freedom,  his  views  concerning 
angels,  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  he  held  to  the 
end."  It  was  his  exile,  we  are  told,  that  led  him  to 
write  his  books,  which  were  so  great  that  his  over- 
shadowing contemporary,  Maimonides,  who  has 
been  called  "the  light  of  the  Middle  Ages,"  recom- 
mended them  to  his  son  as  the  exclusive  object  of  his 
study  for  some  time. 

But,  without  changing  or  adding  to  the  sermon 
of  "Ben  Ezra,"  let  us  seek  for  an  interpretation  in 
the  humbler  sources  of  our  own  lives. 

First,  I  would  emphasize  the  appeal  to  youth  for 
seriousness.  Too  long  has  youth  been  regarded  as 
only  the  playtime  of  life;  too  often  has  life  been 
cheapened  by  youth's  mistaking  jocularity  for  joy, 
hilarity  for  pleasure,  flippancy  for  happiness.  Oh, 
the  years  of  youth  are  too  few,  too  precious,  to  be 
wasted   in   mere   preparation    for   usefulness    farther 


4&  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

along.  My  youthful  friends,  the  world  needs  today 
your  young  years;  great  causes  languish  for  your 
youthful  support.  Why  withhold  your  service 
until  war's  alarms  are  sounded?  When  awful  bat- 
tle dangers  are  pending  and  physical  prowess  is  in 
demand,  then  the  nation  ever  turns  to  its  young  men, 
and  they  promptly  respond.  When  the  "long  roll" 
is  beaten,  boys  become  manly  and  promptly  "rally 
around  the  flag."  Are  these  the  only  things  worthy 
your  enthusiasm?  Can  boys  be  transformed  only  on 
the  lower  levels  of  life,  such  as  are  symbolized  by 
the  bayonet  and  the  bullet?  Are  our  girls'  services 
available  to  the  state  and  the  church  only  when  there 
is  lint  to  be  scrape  and  bandages  are  to  be  rolled?  I 
for  one  will  not  believe  it.  Today  you  are  needed, 
young  men  and  young  women,  in  the  army  corps  of 
peace ;  your  service  is  called  for  in  the  battle  for  purity, 
for  honesty,  and  for  virtue.  And,  in  pleading  for 
this  seriousness,  I  plead  for  your  joy;  nay,  for  some- 
thing more  than  joy — for  peace,  serenity,  aye,  blessed- 
ness— a  word  which  finds  its  picturesque  quality 
in  the  Welsh  of  my  mother-tongue  in  gwynfyd, 
the  "white  world,"  the  "spotless  land,"  the 
land  which  becomes  the  radiant  life.  In  pleading 
for  seriousness,  I  plead  for  your  happiness  even  more 
than  for  your  usefulness. 

Among  the  permanent  treasures  in  American 
song  are  the  volumes  from  the  pen  of  Edith  M. 
Thomas,  whose  guileless  spirit  has  made  her  the 
interpreter  of  flowers  and  birds.     Two  of  these  are 


AN  APPEAL  TO  YOUTH  49 

entitled  In  Sunshineland  and  Fair  Shadowland. 
The  American  people  will  not  spare  either  of  these 
volumes,  for  both  contain  exquisite  melodies,  dainty 
conceits,  faultless  rhythm.  But  the  student  of  these 
poems  will  promptly  find  that  the  songs  of  Shadozv- 
land  have  a  charm  which  the  carols  of  Sunshineland 
miss.  Edith  Thomas  is  no  unworthy  interpreter  of 
Browning,  and  I  will  let  her  echo  the  wisdom  of 
Rabbi  Ben  Ezra.  Like  him,  she  rejoiced  in  youth 
and  its  hilarity,  but  with  him  she  recognized  the  last- 
ing inspirations  in  the  passing  joys  of  youth.  She 
says  : 

Vex  not  that  impassioned  soul 
Whereupon  all  issues  roll, 
Fraught  with  joy  or  fraught  with  woe, 
That  our  common  lot  may  know. 
Nay,  but  as  thou  canst,  assuage 
The  burden  of  his  heritage; 
For  there  live  within  his  breast 
Memory,    foresight,    all    unrest, 
Whether  pain  or  pleasure  hold 
The    heart's    recesses    manifold. 

Again,  in  a  poem  entitled  "The  Domino,"  she 
describes  the  soul  as  "a  pilgrim  clothed  in  hodden 
gray,"  going  forth  in  quest  of  love.  He  encounters 
in  succession  Indifference,  Pride,  and  Anger,  and 
on  short  acquaintance  each  calls  forth  the  exclama- 
tion: "You  look  like  love."  Yet  none  of  them 
satisfies.     But  at  the  last — 

I  met  a  fugitive  distraught,  undone, 

Who  sometimes  stayed   for  dread,  and  sometimes   run. 


so  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Though  lord  of  all  that  sweetest  bards  have  sung. 
Not  one  poor  word  supplied  his  halting  tongue, 
But  all  his  soul  he  lavished  in  a  sigh. 
"So,  you  are  love !"  quoth  L 

This  is  the  final  exclamation  of  the  soul.  It  is  the 
halting  silence,  the  brooding  life,  that  finds  love. 

My  next  appeal  to  youth  is  an  appeal  for  democ- 
racy. Begin  early  to  make  common  cause  with  all 
your  kind.  The  greatest  menace  to  your  happiness 
today  and  your  usefulness  tomorrow  is  the  menace 
of  aristocracy.  I  mean  the  tendency  to  take  a  part 
for  the  whole,  to  be  lured  by  the  glamor  of  lines; 
a  preference  for  a  superficial  excellency;  a  belief,  not 
only  in  the  legitimacy,  but  in  the  permanency,  of  the 
passing  distinctions  of  society.  Unguided  youth  falls 
an  easy  victim  to  sectionalism,  partisanship,  to  club 
and  society  politics.  It  is  "our  set"  that  frequently 
dominates  the  youthful  ambition. 

Some  Greek-letter-society  enthusiasm  or  class 
politics  too  often  consumes  the  devotion  meant  for 
diviner  ends,  and  social  circle  or  geographical  center 
asks  and  receives  that  fidelity  and  enthusiasm,  that 
service  and  support,  which  belong  to  something 
broader  and  nobler,  something  more  holy,  than  the 
cliques  and  classes  of  youthful  preferences.  Remem- 
ber that  all  political  policies  and  denominational 
creeds  fade  as  you  approach  the  highlands  of  the 
spirit.  Again,  Edith  Thomas,  in  the  spirit  of  Rabbi 
Ben  Ezra,  has  sung  the  lesson  of  age  to  youth: 


AN  APPEAL  TO  YOUTH  $1 

Listen,  thou  child  I  used  to  be ! 

I  know  what  thou  didst  fret  to  know — 
Knowledge  thou  couldst  not  lure  to  thee, 

Whatever  bribe  thou  wouldst  bestow, 
That  knowledge  but  a  way-mark  plants 
Along  the  road  of  ignorance. 

Listen,  thou  child  I  used  to  be ! 

My  soul  to  wrath  'gainst  wrong  is  used, 
Where  thou  wast   fed  with  vanity, 

The  doer  and  the  deed  confused. 
Right  wrath  the  deed  stabs  soon  or  late, 
The  doer  spares,  his  deed  to  hate. 

Listen,  thou  child  I  used  to  be ! 

Unproud  I  move,  and  yet  unbowed. 
Where  thou  wast  fed  Avith  vanity. 

Thy  chiefest  pride — thou  wast  not  proud ! 
True  lowliness  forgets  its  state. 
And  equal  trains  with  small  or  great. 

Listen,  thou  child  I  used  to  be ! 

I  am  what  thy  dream-wandering  sense 
Did  shape,  and  thy  fresh  will  decree, 

Yet  all  with  subtle  difference : 
Where  heaven's  arc  did  seem  to  end. 
Still  on  and  on  fair  fields  extend. 

The  next  appeal  of  age  to  youth,  as  it  comes  to 
me,  is  that  you  work  on  long  lines,  taking  to  heart 
the  wisdom  of  the  oid  Greek,  which  Longfellow 
translated  into  your  favorite  song: 

Art  is  long  and  time  is  fleeting. 

When   in    1882   I   visited   my  birthplace,   the   wisest 
kinsman  I   found  in  that  Welsh  countryside  was  a 


$2  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

young  cousin  who  had  leased  for  ninety-nine  years  a 
grim,  rocky  old  hill,  a  barren  bluff,  on  which  he  was 
setting  out  young  spruce  trees  not  waist-high.  He  cal- 
culated that  in  thirty  years  the  spruce  would  yield  a 
few  poles  to  the  timber  market,  and  that  fifty  years 
hence  they  would  prove  a  modest  fortune  to  the 
owner  thereof.  Intelligent  agriculture  is  reclaim- 
ing the  wasted  and  now  non-productive  lands  of  Mis- 
sissippi and  Alabama  by  setting  out  extensive  planta- 
tions of  pecan  trees,  which  will  begin  to  yield  a  prof- 
itable harvest  eighteen  or  twenty  years  hence. 
Invest  your  lives,  oh,  young  men  and  young  women, 
on  long  lines !  Heed  the  example  of  the  pecan 
farmers;  imitate  the  adventure  of  my  Welsh  cousin 
and  plant  spruce  trees  that  fifty  years  hence  will 
begin  to  bless  the  world ;  plant  that  which  will  make 
your  children's  children  rich;  so  invest  your  youth 
that  your  triumphs  may  be  chanted  by  the  winds 
moaning  in  tall  tops  of  trees  whose  roots  will  find 
your  fertilizing  ashes  in  deep  graves.  Believe  in  the 
future ;  let  no  short-sighted  cynicism  dampen  your  con- 
fidence in  the  permanence  of  this  old  earth  of  ours, 
in  the  unrendered  possibilities  of  the  human  nature 
which  you  now  represent  for  a  while  on  earth,  and 
for  the  improvement  of  which  you  are  now  trustee. 
An  account  of  your  stewardship  you  must  render  to 
a  future  that  will  despise  your  faithlessness  or  honor 
your  fidelity.  Lose  no  time  in  asking  who  will  culti- 
vate the  trees  when  you  are  dead.  Shame  on  the  mis- 
giving that   plants  sunflowers  to   spring   forth,   give 


AN  APPEAL  TO  YOUTH  53 

their  fruit,  and  die  in  a  season,  rather  than  pine 
trees  whose  virgin  boughs  will  be  yet  untouched  with 
seed-cones  when   you   are  grown  gray. 

Work  on  long  lines,  oh,  young  map  and  young 
woman!  Believe  in  the  future.  Dare  to  work  for 
it.  You  must  plan  big  things,  if  ever  you  hope  to 
achieve  small  things.  The  French  poet  Beranger 
gave  a  parable  of  the  successful  life  in  a  poem 
entitled  "Grand  Plans,"  which  has  been  translated 
by  Miss  Thomas.  In  this  parable  the  poet  started 
out  in  youth  to  write  an  epic.  Gradually,  as  life 
advanced,  the  epic  was  abridged  to  a  tragedy,  the 
tragedy  gave  way  to  the  easier  ode,  the  ode  dwindled 
to  a  song,  the  song  was  abridged  to  a  quatrain.  But 
the  quatrain  was  achieved.  Four  lines  of  poetry 
were  realized  because  an  epic  was  aimed  at. 

Let  the  young,  then,  lend  themselves  to  great 
schemes — not  the  big  things  that  pass,  but  the  long 
things  that  last.  Beware  how  you  sell  life  cheap. 
Beware  lest  you  cheat  the  present  by  discounting  the 
future.  Have  faith  that  tomorrow  will  at  least  be 
equal  to  your  best  today,  and  that  the  present  cannot 
conceive  a  nobility  which  the  future  will  not  appre- 
ciate, or  lay  the  foundations  of  a  cathedral  so 
worthy  that  those  who  come  after  will  not  know  how 
to  rear  the  superstructure.  Work  on  long  lines. 
Have  at  least  as  much  faith  in  the  future  as  had  the 
old  pagan  astronomer  poet  of  Persia,  Omar  Khay- 
yam, when  he  wrote : 


54  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

And  if  the  Wine  you  drink,  the  Lip  you  press, 
End  in  what  All  begins  and  ends  in — Yes; 

Think  then  you  are  To-day  what  Yesterday 
You  were — Tomorrow  you  shall  not  be  less. 

So  when  that  Angel  of  the  darker  Drink 
At  last  shall  find  you  by  the  river-brink, 
And,  offering  his  Cup,  invite  your  Soul 
Forth  to  your  Lips  to  quaff — you  shall  not  shrink. 

When  you  and  I  behind  the  Veil  are  past, 

Oh,  but  the  long,  long  while  the  World  shall  last, 

Which  of  our  Coming  and  Departure  heeds 
As  the  Sea's  self  should  heed  a  pebble-cast. 

Lastly,  age  invites  .you  to  the  high  task  of  peace- 
making. We  are  entering  upon  a  reconciling  cen- 
tury. ReHgion  looks  to  you  for  a  harmonizing 
ministry.  In  this  task  more  than  anywhere  else  will 
be  found  your  installation  into  the  priesthood  of  the 
gwynfa,  the  white  lands,  the  beautific  paradise  over 
which  shall  float  the  unstained  banners  of  peace,  the 
white  flag  of  harmony. 

Let  the  flag  of  whatever  country  or  party  or  sect 
you  choose  float  over  you,  but  let  it  always  be  rimmed 
with  white,  witnessing  to  the  fact  that  we  have  had 
fighting  enough.  The  world  is  weary  of  war.  The 
patriotism  that  launches  battleships  with  boom  of 
cannon  and  blare  of  trumpet  is  yet  to  be  followed  by 
the  nobler  patriotism  that  with  higher  psalm,  nobler 
music,  and  louder  acclaim  will  scuttle  the  same  battle- 
ships, sending  them  to  their  eternal  rest  in  the 
depths  of  the  deepest  sea. 


AN  APPEAL  TO  YOUTH  55 

In  religion  the  cry  is  reconciliation,  not  conquest. 
My  young  friends,  seek  the  underlying  harmonies  of 
love  and  the  overarching  rainbow  of  hope,  rather 
than  the  surface  distinctions  of  creeds  and  of  sects. 
Work  for  peace  in  religion.  '^' 

Sociology  is  but  the  scholar's  word  for  unity, 
economic  harmony,  social  co-operation.  It  is 
mutuality  opposed  to  competition.  It  is  wealth  in  the 
plural  number,  which  is  commonwealth.  No  man  is 
wealthy  today,  no  man  can  reap  the  benefits  of  wealth 
today,  who  puts  his  possessive  case  in  the  first  person 
singular  and  says  "mine;"  nay,  who  even  dares  to 
think  "mine"  and  believe  "mine"  rather  than  "ours'' 
"ours/'  and  still  more.  "OURS !" 

The  venerable  Bede,  the  old  English  bishop  of 
the  seventh  century,  tells  in  his  chronicles  that, 
when  a  certain  priest  was  sent  to  Kent  to  fetch 
King  Edwin's  daughter  to  be  married  to  King  Oswin, 
he  so  planned  his  journey  as  to  return  with  the  lady 
by  water;  whereupon  the  bishop  got  him  a  pot  of  oil 
to  cast  into  the  sea,  if  he  should  meet  with  a  tempest. 
This  he  did  when  the  tempest  came,  and  the  sea  was 
calmed.  Later  science  has  demonstrated  as  possible 
what  was  long  supposed  to  be  a  monkish  legend.  At 
the  Folkstone  Ledge  in  England,  and  perhaps  else- 
where, permanent  machinery  has  been  set  up  in  the 
region  of  the  most  dangerous  waters  for  the  distri- 
bution of  oil  on  turbulent  waves  in  moments  of  dire 
extremity. 

Wise  old  bishop  of  Kent!     You  have  furnished 


56  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

the  parable,  precept,  and  example  to  the  young-  men 
and  women  of  today.  Oh,  my  young  friends,  what 
we  need  is  a  spiritual  equivalent  to  this  old  bishop's 
cruise  of  oil — something  that  will  break  the  chop- 
ping waves  of  antagonism;  something  that  will  dis- 
arm the  threatening  breakers  of  rivalry ;  something 
that  will  curb  the  angry  surf  of  selfishness  and  make 
it  rhythmical  with  life-saving  love,  and  not  boisterous 
to  the  destruction  of  the  human  voyagers.  Electric 
lights  in  the  harbor  of  New  York  have  robbed  Hell- 
gate  of  its  last  terrors.  Oil  and  light,  patience  and 
wisdom,  must  help  you  in  your  ministry  of  reconcilia- 
tion. 

With   these   helps   go    forth,    my   young    friends, 
to  prove  that — 

The  best  is  yet  to  be, 
The  last  of  life,  for  which  the  first  was  made. 


IDEALS 


LONGING 

Of  all  the  myriad  moods  of  mind 

That   through   the  soul   come   thronging. 
Which  one  was  e'er  so  dear,  so  kind, 

So   beautiful  as  Longing? 
The  thing  we  long  for,  that  we  are 

For  one  transcendent  moment. 
Before  the  Present  poor  and  bare 

Can   make  its  sneering  comment. 

Still,  through  our  paltry  stiri  and  strife, 

Glows  doivn  the  wished  Ideal, 
And  Longing  moulds  in  clay  what  Life 

Carves  in   the  marble  Real; 
To  let  the  new  life  in,  we  know. 

Desire  must   ope   the  portal; — 
Perhaps  the  longing  to  be  so 

Helps  make  the  soul  immortal. 

Longing  is  God's  fresh  heavenward  will 

With  our  poor  earthivard  striving; 
We  quench  it  that  zve  may  be  still 

Content  with   merely   living; 
But,  would  we  learn  that  heart's  full  scope 

Which  we  are  hourly  wronging, 
Our  lives  must  climb  from  hope  to  hope 

And  realize  our  longing. 

Ah!  let  us  hope  that  to  our  praise 

Good  God  not  only  reckons 
The  moments  zvhen  zve  tread  his  zvays, 

But  zvhcn   the  spirit  beckons, — 
That  some  slight  good  is  also  zvrought 

Beyond  self-satisfaction, 
When  we  are  simply  good  in  thought, 

Howe'er  we  fail  in  action. 

— James  Russell  Lowell 


IV 
IDEALS 

God  hides  some  ideal  in  every  human  breast. — Robert  Collyer 

Yes,  God  does  hide  some  ideal  in  every  human 
breast,  else  it  would  cease  to  be  human.  I  will  not 
say  that  an  ideal  is  the  distinctive  possession  of  man, 
that  the  gift  of  vision,  the  inspiration  of  dreams, 
the  power  to  see  and  the  purpose  to  pursue  something 
outside  of  present  life  and  beyond  present  enjoy- 
ment, is  the  peculiar  characteristic  of  human  nature 
as  distinguished  from  what  we  sometimes  call  animal 
nature;  for  I  believe  that  this  power  of  longing,  this 
law  of  pursuit,  this  pressure  from  within  toward  a 
good  that  is  yet  without,  is,  in  some  sweet  and 
high  fashion,  the  gift  of  dog  and  horse,  of  bird  and 
worm;  and,  back  of  that,  could  we  have  eyes  to  see 
forces  as  well  as  forms,  and  minds  to  understand  the 
mysteries  we  call  "attraction"  and  "gravitation,"  I 
think  we  should  see  that  there  is  that  in  crystal  that 
mellows  into  a  cell,  that  the  cell  breaks  into  other 
cells,  and  that  these  in  turn  group  themselves  into 
companionships,  organize  themselves  into  co-opera- 
tive relations,  conspire  to  become  grass  and  worm, 
and,  Emerson  tells  us — 

The    poor    grass    shall    plot    and    plan 

What  it  will  do  when  it  is  man; 

And  striving  to  be  man,  the  worm 

Mounts  through  all  the  spires  of  form. 

59 


6o  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

I  may  not  explain,  perhaps  no  man  can  under- 
stand, what  it  is  in  the  sun  that  woos  the  Httle  tender 
shoot  through  the  prison  walls  of  the  acorn  down  in 
the  dark,  damp  earth  up  into  the  light,  or  what  it  is 
in  the  acorn  that  persistently  pushes  through  the 
shell  and  blindly  gropes  through  the  dark  toward  that 
light;  but  it  is  something  that  already  means  the  oak, 
the  mighty  tree  with  great  branches  and  stalwart 
trunk.  In  summertime  it  becomes  a  leafy  city,  where 
birds  and  squirrels,  butterflies,  insects,  and  worms 
innumerable,  find  a  happy  home.  In  wintertime  it 
defies  the  storms,  wearing  undaunted  its  glistening 
coat  of  ice  and  trimmings  of  icicle,  as  the  old  knights 
carried  helmet,  shield,  and  spear;  carrying  its  snow 
plumage  as  proudly  and  defiantly  as  ever  "Henry  of 
Navarre"  wore  his  white  plume  on  his  battlefields. 
There  must  be  an  ideal  in  the  heart  of  the  acorn,  else 
there  would  be  no  oak;  there  must  be  an  ideal  in  the 
heart  of  the  oak,  else  there  would  be  no  more  acorns; 
and  the  ideal  of  the  oak  tree  is  no  longer  another  oak 
tree,  but  an  oak  forest,  a  mountainside  of  green,  an 
inhabited  valley,  and  sheltered  homes  for  boys  and 
girls,  ships  for  human  commerce,  schools,  libraries, 
temples  for  the  development  of  human  souls. 

The  ideal  that  God  plants  in  every  human  breast 
is  a  part  of  that  great  creative  law  which  scholars 
call  "evolution;"  it  is  that  something  which  made 
stars  out  of  star-dust  and  grouped  them  into  systems, 
the  something  which  gave  suns  their  habitations  and 


IDEALS  6i 

swung  the  planets  into  fixed  pathways,  from  which 
they  may  not  stray. 

This,  then,  is  our  first  lesson  about  the  ideal, 
that  it  is  not  some  special  gift  to  a  few  good  people, 
an  exceptional  grace  granted  to  "nice  folks,"  but  the 
necessity  of  life  everywhere,  the  gift  of  all  beings,  an 
endowment  of  every  human  soul  because  it  has  begun 
to  be,  away  back  and  below  the  poorest  and  weakest 
human  soul.  It  is  the  law  of  the  ideal  that  covers  the 
stagnant  water  with  life,  that  fills  the  mud  with  eggs 
and  the  very  air  we  breathe  with  germs. 

A  second  lesson :  All  ideals  are  good  for  some- 
thing. Most  of  the  microbes  in  the  air  are  friendly 
to  man  as  he  is  today;  most  of  the  germs  in  the  mud 
are  valuable;  they  are  all  friendly  to  man  as  he 
ought  to  be ;  all  of  them  win  or  drive  as  far  as  they 
may  life  into  greater  life.  The  ideal  is  not  a  grim 
necessity,  but  the  joyful  song  of  the  universe,  and  this 
song  is  the  chorus  of  all  life.  Well  does  Emerson 
tell  us : 

'Tis  not  in  the  high  stars  alone, 

Nor  in  the  cups  of  budding  flowers, 

Nor  in  the  redbreast's  mellow   tone, 
Nor  in  the  bow  that  smiles  in  showers, 

But  in  the  mud  and  scum  of  things 

There    alway,    alway    something    sings. 

Now  for  a  third  lesson  of  the  ideal.  It  does  not 
follow,  because  all  ideals  are  good,  that  one  ideal  is 
as  good  as  another.  If  heat  and  moisture,  making 
common  cause  with   the   germ,   are   able   to   change 


62  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

earth,  air,  and  water  into  life-stuff,  which  your  books 
call  "protoplasm,"  and  then  again  to  transform  this 
life-stuff  into  life,  which  rises,  now  into  stem,  anon 
into  stamens  and  pistils,  and  at  last  into  fruit,  now 
green,  now  yellow,  now  red,  now  bitter,  now  sweet, 
and  at  last  nourishing,  it  does  not  follow  that  all  the 
boy  and  girl  have  to  do  is  to  lie  in  the  sun  and  let  the 
shade  and  shine  work  upon  them,  lending  themselves 
simply  to  the  eating  and  the  drinking  that  nature 
prompts  them  to,  that  they  may  be  changed  into  what 
is  fair  and  good.  It  does  not  follow,  because  the 
worm  has  fulfilled  its  duty  when  it  has  woven  its 
cocoon  and  gone  to  sleep  to  wait  for  its  wings,  that 
the  boy  and  girl  have  nothing  to  do  but  yield  to  the 
law  of  their  instincts  and  their  passions,  and  wait 
for  an  angel,  a  winged  thing  of  beauty  and  of  life, 
to  spring  therefrom. 

Out  of  every  realized  ideal  there  must  be  born  a 
new  ideal.  Every  added  power  brings  added  respon- 
sibility. God's  law  of  the  ideal  is  like  the  ladder  in 
Jacob's  dream,  something  upon  which  beings  may 
climb  from  earth  toward  heaven.  And  they  may 
also  go  the  other  way.  If  men  may  grow  up  into 
angelic  life,  angels  may  grow  down  into  bestial  life. 
The  butterfly  came  from  the  grub;  now  it  has  wings 
and  must  use  them,  it  can  lead  the  life  of  the  grub  no 
longer.  The  frog  came  from  the  tadpole,  but  the 
frog  is  not  a  thing  of  gills;  it  is  an  air-breather,  and 
it  must  use  its  lungs. 

There  comes  a  place  on  the  ladder  of  life  when 


IDEALS  63 

fins  give  way  to  paws,  and  the  living  must  learn  to 
creep.  There  comes  a  place  on  the  ladder  of  life  when 
paws  give  way  to  feet,  and  the  living  must  learn  to 
walk.  There  comes  a  place  on  the  ladder  of  life 
when  feet  change  to  wings,  and  the  living  must  learn 
to  fly.  There  comes  a  place  on  the  ladder  of  life 
when  intellect  has  a  home  in  the  brain,  and  the  living 
must  learn  to  think.  There  comes  a  place  on  the  lad- 
der of  life  when  the  soul  looks  away  from  self,  sees 
that  which  is  fair  as  distinguished  from  that  which  is 
foul,  knows  the  difference  between  right  and  wrong, 
and  life  must  learn  to  love,  to  choose,  to  hate  the 
wrong,  to  love  the  true,  and  to  serve  the  right,  to  live 
when  living  serves  and  to  die  when  death  is  the 
higher  service. 

This  brings  us  to  our  fourth  lesson  and  our  first 
great  perplexity.  God  not  only  "hides  some  ideal  in 
every  human  soul,"  but  many  ideals  are  there  imbed- 
ded; and,  within  limits,  it  is  for  the  human  soul, 
however  tattered  and  battered  it  may  be,  to  choose  its 
ideals. 

The  poorest  man  is  farther  along  than  the  highest 
brute.  The  Hottentot  is  higher  than  the  ape;  the 
savage  is  farther  along  than  the  tiger;  the  saddest 
tramp  is  farther  along  the  road,  and  has  graver 
responsibilities,  and  higher  possibilities,  than  the 
noblest  of  dogs,  although  the  latter  may  be  more  lov- 
able and  loving  than  the  former,  because  the  one  is  a 
degenerate  man  and  the  other  a  regenerate  wolf.  Hot- 
tentot, savage,  and  tramp  have  come  to  speech  and  voice, 


64  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

to  hand  and  thumb.  Given  these,  we  have  nature's 
highest  achievement  in  mechanism.  These  represent 
the  high-bridge  which  carried  Hfe  out  of  the  material 
into  the  spiritual,  out  of  the  realm  of  things  into  the 
realm  of  ideas,  where  soul  begins  to  rule,  intellect 
becomes  dominant,  and  the  kingdom  of  love  begins  to 
be.  The  puniest  babe  comes  into  the  world  with  a 
bundle  of  ideals  woven  into  his  nerves,  hid  away  in 
his  brain  like  eggs  in  a  nest,  waiting  to  be  hatched. 
Will  that  babe  be  governed  by  the  ideals  of  the  worm, 
the  reptile,  the  wild  beast,  the  bird,  the  savage,  or  the 
saint?  All  of  them  are  found  in  his  ancestral  line; 
their  names  are  engraved  on  his  pedigree;  he  has  an 
inheritance  from  each  of  them. 

Let  us  face  the  highest  task  ever  set  before  a 
boy  or  girl — the  task  of  choosing  an  ideal.  What 
must  the  boy  work  for?  What  is  the  model  accord- 
ing to  which  the  girl  may  plan  her  life? 

Here  are  three  rules  that  may  help : 

I.  An  ideal  should  be  sufficiently  far  away  to 
require  a  whole  lifetime  to  pursue  it.  A  dog  is  old  at 
eight  years;  the  child  at  that  age  has  but  begun  to 
live.  The  horse  is  decrepit  at  twenty-one;  the  youth 
is  just  entering  his  majority.  The  savage  is  mature 
at  fourteen,  and  stops  growing  before  he  is 
yet  twenty;  but  the  child  of  the  civilized  man  is  in 
college  at  that  age ;  he  is  a  student  at  thirty,  he  is 
still  growing  at  fifty.  In  choosing  an  ideal,  then, 
let  it  be  one  that  will  give  a  long  perspective  to  your 
task;  let  it  be  far  enough  away  and  high  enough  up 


IDEALS  65 

to  keep  you  at  it,  so  that,  when  you  reach  the  eighty- 
five  years  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  you  may  reahze  the 
wisdom  of  his  confession :  "I  have  picked  up  but  a 
few  pebbles  on  the  infinite  beach  of  truth."  You  will 
then  but  have  written  the  preface  to  the  book  of  an 
endless  life,  you  will  but  have  begun  the  career  of  an 
endless  quest  of  an  ideal  still  luring  you  farther  on. 

I  remember  a  story  of  an  ignorant  sailor  to  whom 
the  captain  intrusted  the  tiller  of  the  boat  on  a  clear, 
starlight  night,  while  he  went  below  for  a  little  rest. 
Jack  was  told  to  keep  the  prow  ever  pointing  toward  a 
certain  star.  This  he  did  until  he  dozed  at  his  post. 
The  ship  veered  from  her  course,  and  Jack  awoke  to 
find  his  star  shining  brightly  over  the  stern  of  the 
boat,  whereupon  he  awoke  the  captain  and  asked  him 
for  another  star,  because  he  had  sailed  past  the  one 
first  given  him.  Let  the  star  of  your  ideal  be  such  as 
you  cannot  overtake  and  can  never  leave  behind. 

2.  You  should  choose  the  ideal  that  will  enlist  all 
your  faculties,  and  thus  ever  enlarge  the  boundaries 
of  your  humanity.  Alas  for  the  boy  whose  ideals 
will  make  of  him  chiefly  a  counting-machine, 
a  money-maker,  a  digger  among  the  dictionaries,  a 
slave  of  the  violin,  the  brush,  or  the  chisel,  or  the 
captain  of  a  football  team.  Hurrah  for  the  boy  who 
knows  the  value  of  these  things  and  has  achieved 
some  degree  of  competency  in  each  of  these  realms, 
but  still  has  large  sympathies  and  energies  to  spare. 
Beware  of  the  ideal  that  paralyzes  the  sinews  of 
body  or  mind,  leading  to  aborted  organs,  like  the  legs 


66  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

which  the  snake  once  possibly  had,  but  has  lost  from 
want  of  use. 

3.  Lastly,  let  your  ideal  be  one  that  will  satisfy 
the  highest.  Flee  the  business  that  offends  the  con- 
science; avoid  the  society  that  leaves  a  "bad  taste  in 
the  mouth,"  that  makes  you  ashamed  of  yourself. 
Beware  of  that  ideal  that  crucifies  your  noblest  aspir- 
ations, your  gentlest  emotions,  your  tenderest  feeling. 
George  Eliot  has  said:  "That  religion  cannot  save 
sinners  that  does  not  satisfy  saints."  That  ideal  is 
inadequate  which  does  not  represent  the  best  there  is 
in  you,  which  does  not  woo  you  to  the  highest,  which 
is  not  sufficiently  noble  to  compel  every  appetite  and 
every  passion  in  your  nature,  every  faculty  of  the 
mind  and  every  muscle  of  the  body,  to  take  their 
place  as  servants  of  the  best,  helpers  of  the  highest. 

If  these  three  rules  are  safe  rules,  you  need  never 
be  afraid  of  following  too  high  an  ideal.  Never  be 
brow-beaten  by  the  selfish  philosopher  who  would 
sneer  at  the  "idealist"  or  intimidate  you  into  some 
sordid  standards  of  "success,"  or  the  narrow  measure 
of  life,  because  it  is  called  "practical."  If  you  are  to 
have  an  ideal  that  will  last  a  lifetime  and  hold  good 
for  eternity,  that  will  enlist  all  your  powers  and 
give  you  a  spherical  soul,  moving  like  the  stars  in  a 
God-given  orbit;  if  you  are  to  have  an  ideal  that  will 
satisfy  all  the  longings  of  your  nature,  it  must  be 
one  that  cannot  be  blurred  by  defeat  or  distorted  by 
popularity,  one  that  will  make  you  glad  to  be  alone 


IDEALS  67 

with  it  if  need  be,  or  to  die  for  it  when  the  time  comes 
for  you  best  to  serve  it  in  that  way. 

Shall  we  look  for  illustrations?  History  is  replete 
with  ideals.  In  youth,  at  least,  embodied  ideals  are 
most  inspiring.  Herein  lie  the  best  uses  of  history, 
and  the  purest  gold  in  literature. 

Boys,  what  names  in  history  suggest  the  ideal  I 
have  tried  to  outline?  Let  us  recall  some  of  them. 
You  may  think  of  Moses,  the  favored  young  man  at 
the  king's  court,  who  stood  by  his  countryman  when  he 
was  wronged  by  his  Egyptian  master,  who  left  the 
royal  palace  that  he  might  lead  a  band  of  runaway 
slaves  through  a  wilderness  and  become  to  them  law- 
giver and  leader;  of  Daniel,  the  incorruptible  youth, 
who  held  to  his  simple  diet  of  beans  at  royal  tables, 
who  would  not  bend  his  knee  to  a  false  god,  who 
preferred  to  live  with  lions  rather  than  with  an  out- 
raged conscience;  of  Socrates,  the  homely  Athenian, 
who  taught  young  men  their  ignorance;  and  of  Bud- 
dha, the  Indian  prince,  who  abandoned  the  prospect 
of  a  throne  and  became  a  beggar  and  a  hermit  that 
perchance  he  might  find  the  way  of  helpfulness  and 
learn  how  to  make  mankind  more  pitiful,  men  and 
women  more  gentle. 

And  if  we  come  down  into  modern  times,  we  find 
Kossuth,  Garibaldi,  Gladstone,  and  Lincoln — ideals 
worthy  to  be  patterned  after  because  they  believed 
in  freedom  for  all  and  stood  up  against  tyranny. 

Girls,  have  you  found  your  ideal  of  womanhood? 
Is  it  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning,  or  George  Eliot, 


68  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

who  actualized  in  their  lives  their  heroines  of  purity 
and  wisdom,  and  illustrated  the  lessons  of  charity 
and  helpfulness  that  enriched  their  books?  Will 
you  pattern  after  Elizabeth  Fry,  Florence  Nightin- 
gale, or  Dorothea  Dix,  who  gave  their  lives  for  the 
unfortunate?  Or  will  you  think  of  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe,  who  accomplished  great  results  in  the  face  of 
great  difficulties  and  great  opposition? 

Boys  and  girls,  be  not  ashamed  to  confess  your 
admiration  for  such  as  these.  Let  no  one  dis- 
courage you  by  saying  that  they  are  too  beautiful  for 
you  to  pattern  after,  too  great  for  you  to  follow. 
But.'if  they  seem  too  far  away, you  may  look  to  find  the 
ideal  of  your  life  in  lesser  souls,  reflected  in  humbler 
ways.  Wherever  you  find  a  life  that  is  marked  by 
persistency,  loyalty,  nobility,  sacredly  put  that  life 
into  the  cabinet  that  holds  your  ideals.  Wherever 
you  find  a  woman's  hand  that  is  strong  and  loving,  or 
a  man's  hand  that  is  loving  and  strong ;  wherever  you 
find  a  youth  that  is  gentle  as  well  as  brave,  a  maiden 
that  is  pure  as  well  as  blithe,  hold  them  aloft  as 
ideals,  remembering  always  that  embodied  nobility 
is  the  more  potent. 

The  wisdom  of  my  text  is  best  understood  when 
reflected  in  the  radiant  face  haloed  with  the  white 
hair  of  him  who  wrote  it.  The  best  analysis  of  my 
text  is  found  in  the  story  of  the  life  of  that  York- 
shire lad  who  read  his  books  while  blowing  the  bel- 
lows as  a  blacksmith's  apprentice,  and  thought  out 
the  sermons  which  he  preached  on  the  Yorkshire  cir- 


IDEALS  69 

cuit  while  shoeing  horses ;  who  came  to  America,  and 
worked  eight  years  at  the  anvil  making  hammers  in 
Philadelphia,  reading  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica 
through  in  the  evenings  of  those  years;  who  after- 
wards came  to  Chicago  to  be  its  patriof-preacher  in 
the  dark  days  of  treason  and  war,  and  its  consolation 
and  inspiration  when  four  or  five  square  miles  of 
Chicago  were  in  ashes ;  and  who  is  still,  as  he  has 
been  for  many  years,  a  benignant  power  in  the  hurried 
life  of  New  York  City. 

But  the  ideal  of  these  ideals,  the  pattern  after 
which  most  of  these  men  and  women  I  have  men- 
tioned shaped  their  lives,  stands  out  very  clearly 
before  you,  my  dear  boys  and  girls.  There  is  no 
sweeter  name  in  all  your  textbooks  than  the  name  of 
Jesus;  there  is  no  pattern  more  available,  more  tang- 
ible, more  persistent,  in  the  curriculum  of  high  school 
or  college,  than  the  personality  of  the  Nazarene  car- 
penter, the  sweet  and  yet  strong  man  who  took  babes 
in  his  arms  and  blessed  them,  but  who  defied  kings  on 
their  thrones  and  purged  the  temple  of  thieves  and 
speculators  with  a  whip  of  small  cords ;  the  man  who 
could  match  the  beatitudes  with  a  benignant  presence 
that  soothed  the  maniac,  reclaimed  the  Magdalene, 
and  glorified  the  cross.  Here  is  an  ideal  that  is  tang- 
ible, objective,  and  at  the  same  time  satisfactory  to 
the  inward  aspirations  of  the  noblest. 

This  is  why  I  think  it  worth  while  to  seek  more 
and  more  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  life  which 
began  in  a  manger  and  ended  on  a  cross;  this  is  why 


yo  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

I  would  have  you  seek  citizenship  in  that  spiritual 
movement  which,  spite  of  form  and  dogma,  now  by 
help  of  ritual  and  again  in  spite  of  it,  with  priest  or 
without  priest,  has  stretched  through  nineteen  cen- 
turies of  mortal  time — the  movement  which  men  call 
Christianity. 

But  now,  as  when  Jesus  was  living,  there  is 
danger  in  names.  Now  as  then,  many  will  confess 
him  in  words  who  deny  him  in  deeds.  Altars  are 
desecrated,  now  as  then,  by  formality  and  dogmatism. 
Many  and  many  times  down  through  the  centuries 
those  who  have  been  most  like  him  in  spirit  have  had 
to  refuse  the  so-called  Christian  formulas  and  forms. 
This  is  why  I  commend  to  you  no  slavish  adherence 
to  the  letter,  no  outward  conformity  that  does  not 
strengthen  the  inward  spirit;  but  I  do  commend  to 
you  the  pursuit  of  the  ideal  that  still  seems  to  find  its 
best  literary  statement  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
and  the  parables  of  the  New  Testament,  and  its  high- 
est historical  embodiment  in  that  life  which  combined 
clear  thought  with  consistent  action,  and  independ- 
ence of  spirit  with  social  dependence  and  human 
co-operation  to  a  transcendent  degree. 

How  is  this  ideal  to  be  pursued?  How  is  the 
religious  life,  thus  defined,  to  be  followed?  How 
can  you  and  I  be  "Christian"  as  interpreted  by  the 
Beatitudes  and  the  Golden  Rule,  and  reflected  in  the 
Lord's  Prayer  and  the  parable  of  the  Good  Samari- 
tan? This  is  the  greatest  question;  and  herein  lies 
the  great,  sweet,  high  and  yet  humble  mystery  of  the 


IDEALS  71 

ideal,  without  which  you  cannot  take  a  step  in 
advance,  but  which,  with  all  our  knowledge  and  all 
our  time,  we  can  never  reach. 

In  answering  this  question  of  "How,"  lies  the 
value  of  the  sermon,  the  use  of  worship,  the  meaning 
of  the  church. 

After  all  our  search,  perhaps  we  shall  find  no 
better  study  of  the  "How"  than  in  a  quaint  old  story 
that  is  one  of  the  deathless  treasures  in  English  litera- 
ture. It  was  written  over  two  hundred  years  ago. 
Your  grandfathers  and  grandmothers,  I  fear,  were 
better  acquainted  with  it  than  you  are.  But  it  is  a 
story  which  you  will  learn  to  appreciate  more 
and  more  as  you  advance  in  culture  as  well  as  in 
the  life  of  conscience.  You  may  turn  away  from  it 
as  a  textbook  in  theology  and  think  it  old  fashioned 
as  a  handbook  of  devotion ;  but,  as  a  student,  you  will 
have  to  come  back  to  it  after  awhile  as  to  one  of  the 
perennial  springs  of  literature;  and  as  such  you  will 
find  it  all  the  more  valuable  as  a  helper  in  the  pursuit 
of  the  ideal.  It  becomes  all  the  more  valuable  to  our 
purpose  when  we  learn  that  it  was  written  by  one 
who  was  an  itinerant  tinker  and  spent  nearly  twelve 
years  of  his  life  in  jail,  during  which  time  he  wrote 
most  of  the  book. 

John  Bunyan  has  written  in  allegory  the  story  of 
every  pilgrim  who  travels  from  the  "City  of  Destruc- 
tion" toward  the  "Celestial  City."  Each  of  us,  like 
"Christian"  in  the  story,  must  escape  from  the  town 
of  "Carnal-Policy;"  we   must  carry  our  burden   of 


72  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

sins  through  the  "Slough  of  Despond"  toward  the 
"Wicket  Gate."  We  must,  Hke  him,  avoid  the  "Wide 
and  Crooked  Way,"  must  climb  the  "Hill  of  Diffi- 
culty," though  the  easier  paths  to  the  land  of  "Vain- 
glory" and  the  "Way  of  Danger"  invite  us  on  either 
side.  The  "Palace  Beautiful"  w^ill  lure  us,  but  we 
must  not  bide  there.  The  "Valley  of  Humiliation" 
awaits  us.  The  "Vanity  Fair"  of  the  world,  with  its 
"Shams"  and  "Jugglers,"  its  "Titles,"  its  "Games," 
its  "Scandals"  and  "Preferments,"  will  tempt  us. 
The  "Hill  of  Lucre"  is  on  our  way,  and  "Doubting 
Castle"  on  the  "Hill  of  Error"  will  seek  to  entrap 
us;  but  we  are  pilgrims,  and  must  push  onward 
toward  the  "Delectable  Mountain,"  on  through  the 
"Enchanted  Ground,"  in  which  we  must  not  sleep, 
and  still  on  through  Beulah  Land  on  the  very  borders 
of  Heaven;  and  even  there  we  shall  find  tempting 
ways  that  lead  to  the  "Gates  of  Hell."  Every  pil- 
grim on  this  road  will  meet  "Sir  Obstinate"  and  "Mr. 
Pliable,"  "Mr.  Worldly-Wiseman,"  "Mr.  Legality," 
and  "Mr.  Civility,"  who  will  try  to  lure  him  from 
his  high  quest,  to  retard  him  on  his  long  journey.  "Mr. 
Self-Presumption,"  "Mr,  Hypocrisy,"  and  "Mr.  Timor- 
ous" will  offer  their  practical  suggestions.  "Apol- 
lyon,"  the  horrible  monster,  stands  in  the  way  between 
you  and  your  ideals,  and  you  must  fight  him  as 
"Christian"  did.  The  "Lust  of  the  Flesh,"  the 
"Lust  of  the  Eyes,"  and  the  "Pride  of  Life"  are  real 
tempters  on  the  pilgrim  road  to  the  Celestial  King- 
dom. 


IDEALS  73 

Bunyan  has  personified  "Shame,"  "Discontent," 
"Pride,"  "Arrogancy,"  "Self-Conceit,"  and  "Worldly 
Glory,"  as  men  who  meet  the  pilgrim  to  discourage 
and  divert  him.  "Mr.  Talkative,"  the  8on  of  "Say- 
Well,"  and  "Lord  Hate-Good"  try  to  arrest  his  atten- 
tion. "Mr.  Envy,"  "Mr.  Superstition,"  and  "Mr. 
Pick-Thank"  testify  against  him.  "Sir  Having- 
Greedy,"  "Lord  Luxurious,"  "Lord  Carnal-Delight," 
and  other  friends  of  "Beelzebub"  waylay  him  and 
try  him  before  a  jury  of  their  peers,  among  whom 
are  "Mr.  Liar,"  "Mr.  Enmity,"  "Mr.  Hate-Light," 
"Mr.  Love-Lust,"  and  the  rest  of  them.  "Lord 
Turn-About,"  "Lord  Time-Server,"  "Mr.  Smooth- 
Man,"  "Mr.  Facing-Both-Ways,"  "Mr.  Money- 
Love,"  and  "Mr.  Vain-Confidence"  are  among  the 
men  whom  the  pilgrim  encounters,  each  with  his 
specious  argument,  each  pleading  the  logic  of  expedi- 
ency, popularity,  and  prosperity.  But  through  the 
companionship  of  "Mr.  Hope"  and  "Mr.  Great- 
Grace,"  and  the  help  of  "Mr.  Faithful,"  who  fell  by 
the  way  fighting  for  his  liberty  and  his  conscience,  he 
is  able  to  parry  the  arguments  of  "Faint-Heart," 
"Mistrust,"  and  all  the  rest.  He  finds  timely  help  in 
"Mr.  Knowledge,"  "Mr.  Experience,"  and  "Mr.  Sin- 
cerity," the  shepherds  on  the  "Delectable  Mountain." 
And  so  he  pushes  on  until  at  last  he  finds  himself 
separated  only  by  the  river,  the  river  we  must  all 
cross,  from  the  Celestial  City. 

John  Bunyan's  creed  is  all  too  grim  for  our  day, 
but   his   humanity   was    clean    and    strong,    and    his 


74  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

genius  enabled  him  to  give  us  this  wonderful  allegory 
of  the  noble  life  which  he  called  the  Christian  life. 
You  may  call  it  what  you  please,  but  it  was  the  fight 
against  lust  and  selfishness  in  the  interest  of  purity 
and  peace.  It  was  the  passage  out  of  meanness  into 
love;  aye,  let  us  use  the  old  words,  for  you  know 
what  they  mean :  it  was  the  journey  away  from  hell 
toward  heaven;  it  was  the  battle  against  sin,  a  strug- 
gle with  devils  many;  it  was  the  quest  of  the  ideal — 
that  ideal  some  fragment  of  which,  as  Robert  Collyer 
assures  us,  is  hidden  in  every  human  breast. 

The  pilgrim's  road  is  not  a  solitary  one.  It  is 
peopled  thick  with  enemies  to  the  good,  and  so  also 
is  it  populous  with  the  friends  of  the  higher  life. 
You  and  I  can  never  make  the  passage  to  the  "Celes- 
tial City"  alone.  We  must  go  together  and  stand 
together.  We  must  seek  companionship  and  accept 
helps,  or  we  shall  surely  sink  in  the  "Slough  of 
Despond,"  or  lose  our  way  farther  on. 

Then  let  us  lay  hold  of  one  another's  hands  and 
go  together  even  to  the  river's  edge,  and  never  be 
afraid. 

"Yea,  though  I  walk  through  the  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  death,  I  will  fear  no  evil,"  for  "Thy  rod 
and  thy  staff  they  comfort  me." 


HELPING  THE  FUTURE 


Dig  deep  for  truth, 
And  when  your  hands  have  struck  the  hidden  vein 
Its  waters  shall  gush  up  to  meet  your  lips 
With  a  most  tempting  loveliness,  whereof 
Your  souls  may  sate  their  thirst  forevermore. 
So  live,  and  ye  shall  flourish;  and,  perchance. 
When  your  green  springtime,  with  its  buds  and  blooms, 
Passes  to  the  ripe  autumn,  there  shall  be 
Such  mellozved  plenty  of  rich-flavored  fruit 
That  the  old  epicure — the  world — shall  bend 
And  stagger  beneath  her  treasures,  as  a  vine 
Totters  beneath  its  luscious  load   of  grapes. 

— Richard  Realf  in  "The  Human  Statue" 


HELPING  THE  FUTURE 

Let  us  be  such  as  help  the  life  of  the  future. — Zoroaster 

For  the  origin  of  our  text  we  must  look  away 
back  among-  the  hills  of  Bactria.  Perhaps  a  thousand 
miles  farther  east  than  Nazareth,  and  perhaps  six 
hundred  or  more  years  before  the  birth  of  Jesus, 
there  lived  a  man  named  Spitama,  whom  his  people 
called  Zarathushtra,  Zoroaster,  a  priest.  Of  the 
events  of  his  life  little  is  known.  Tradition  has  handed 
down  the  name  of  his  father  and  of  a  daughter,  and 
through  the  mists  we  see  the  dim  outlines  of  a  stal- 
wart old  prophet,  a  vigorous  reformer  who  protested 
against  the  dead-and-alive  sanctities  of  conventional 
religion  and  insisted  on  the  integrities  that  spring 
from  a  sense  of  duties  near  at  hand. 

The  ancient  Hindus,  from  whom  the  prophet 
descended,  glorified  the  life  of  a  dreamer  who  idly 
prayed  beneath  the  palm  trees  while  his  flocks  grazed 
the  unplowed  valleys.  But  Zoroaster  said :  "Live  no 
more  in  tents,  but  build  you  houses.  Plow  the 
earth  and  plant  the  soil  with  seed."  He  taught  that 
one  of  the  most  pleasing  spots  to  the  Creator  is  the 
place  where  corn  is  cultivated  and  fruit-bearing  trees 
are  grown,  and  that  he  is  pleasing  to  Ahura-Mazda, 
the  Holy  One,  who  provides  water  for  unwatered 
lands  and  drainage  for  watery  lands.  And  further 
he  says : 

77 


78  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Whoso  cultivates  barley  cultivates  virtue.  When  the  wheat 
appears  the  demons  hiss,  when  sprouts  come  they  whine, 
when  the  stalks  stands  up  they  cry,  and  when  the  grain  is  in 
the  ear  they  flee  in  rage  and  despair.  Whoever  tills  the  earth 
with  both  hands,  to  him  she  bears  fruit.  Whoever  tills  her  not, 
to  him  she  says :  "Thou  shalt  stand  at  another's  gate  begging 
food  of  those  who  have  much." 

Perhaps  Zoroaster  was  as  far  removed  from 
Jesus  in  time  as  was  King  Alfred  from  Abraham 
Lincoln,  and  still,  out  of  that  remoteness,  from  the 
lips  of  that  shadowy  sage,  come  the  words:  "Do  as 
ye  would  be  done  by;"  and  again:  "Be  very  scrupu- 
lous to  observe  the  truth  in  all  things."  His  mes- 
sage was :  Life  is  a  conflict,  a  battle  between  the 
good  and  the  evil,  and  in  this  battle  every  soldier 
must  carry  his  own  arms,  win  his  own  laurels,  and 
do  the  duty  which  no  one  can  do  for  him.  How  like 
the  prophet  of  Nazareth! 

Again,  Zoroaster,  standing  on  a  mount,  facing 
the  sacred  fire,  addressed  his  followers  and  neigh- 
bors, and  said : 

Ye  offspring  of  renowned  ancestry,  awake,  both  men  and 
women,  choose  ye  today  your  creed  between  the  Ahura  and  the 
Deva,  between  the  religion  of  spiritual  resistance  and  the  religion 
of  physical  indulgence.  Choose  ye  one  of  the  two  spirits.  Be 
good  and  not  base.  You  cannot  belong  to  both  of  them.  Let  us 
be  such  as  help  the  life  of  the  future.  The  prudent  wishes  to 
be  only  where  wisdom  is  at  home.  Wisdom  is  the  shelter  from 
lies,  the  destroyer  of  the  evil  spirit.  All  spiritual  things  are 
garnered  up  in  the  splendid  residence  of  the  good  mind.  The 
wise  and  the  righteous  are  the  best,  therefore  perform  ye  the 
commandments  pronounced  by  the  Creator. 


HELPING  THE  FUTURE  79 

It  is  not  probable  that  Zoroaster  ever  wrote  down 
these  stalwart  sentences.  He  trusted  them  to  the 
vigor  of  the  human  mind,  he  planted  them  in  the 
love  of  the  human  heart ;  and  lo !  here,  after  more 
than  twenty-six  hundred  years,  and  half-way  around 
the  globe  from  where  he  stood,  his  words  are  on  our 
lips  today :     "Let  us  be  such  as  help  the  life  of 

THE   future/'' 

What  high  purpose  was  this!  Not  fame,  money, 
or  ease,  not  social  distinction  or  mental  adornment, 
not  influence  or  renown,  did  the  brave  Persian  pray 
for,  but  rather  that  he  might  be  such  as  should  help 
the  life  of  the  future.  It  may  seem  a  long  way  back 
across  the  hills  of  time  to  where  that  grim  but  kind 
reformer  stood,  clad  in  sheepskins,  and  living  on 
goats'  milk  and  barley  cake;  but  a  still  longer  stretch 
is  it  from  the  noble  Zoroaster  back  to  the  real  primi- 
tive age  when  man  was  so  selfish  that  he  sought  but 
his  own  food  or  that  of  his  immediate  family  or  clan, 
when  he  counted  his  enemies  more  often  than  he  did 
his  friends,  and  was  moved  with  jealousy  and  hatred 
more  often  than  he  was  inspired  to  deeds  of  love  and 
helpfulness.  In  Zoroaster's  prayer  we  catch  a  prom- 
ise of  a  more  beautiful  time  to  come;  of  an  age  when 
there  will  be  less  want  and  more  plenty,  less  hatred 
and  more  love,  less  cruelty  and  more  kindness;  of  a 
time  when  men,  instead  of  trying  to  live  upon  each 
other,  will  be  glad  to  live  for  each  other,  when  the 
great  study  will  be,  not  how  I  can  get  ahead  of  the 
others,  but  how  I  can  best  help  them  along. 


8o  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Back  of  Zoroaster  was  the  time  when  conquest 
was  the  dream  of  the  strongest  and  murder  the  busi- 
ness of  the  powerful ;  and  since  the  day  of  Zoroaster 
such  aims  have  still  been  the  inspiration  of  too  many- 
people.  But  he  prayed  that  he  might  be  such  as 
should  help  the  life  of  the  future;  and  we  look  back 
across  those  years  as  across  a  sea,  and  find  that,  while 
thousands  of  warriors  who  led  their  braves  to  battle, 
thousands  of  merchants  who  sent  their  caravan  trains 
of  laden  camels  across  the  desert  with  their  wealth, 
or  sailed  their  ships  across  the  seas  with  their  luxuries, 
have  gone  down  out  of  sight  and  out  of  memory, 
their  names  forever  lost,  this  simple  priest  who  said, 
"Adore  God  by  means  of  sincere  actions,"  and  prayed 
that  he  might  be  "such  as  should  help  the  life  of  the 
future,"  survives  to  this  day  to  teach  us  that  "God  is 
the  reality  of  the  good  mind,  the  good  deed,  and  the 
good  word." 

How  can  we  bring  the  lesson  of  Zoroaster  down 
to  date?  How  can  we  help  the  life  of  the  future? 
My  first  answer  is:  By  living  now.  Life,  not  its 
belongings,  reaches  into  the  future.  Life  is  health; 
it  is  something  inside,  not  outside;  it  is  simplicity,  it 
is  sobriety,  it  is  earnestness.  Anything  that  inter- 
feres with  our  life  today  will  rob  the  future  of  much 
of  our  helpfulness.  If  we  would  help  the  future,  we 
must  be  helpful  now,  live  today  and  not  seem  to  live, 
never  mind  the  show,  but  be. 

Everything  that  turns  our  life  away  from  the 
good — the  silly  dress,  the  love  of  display,  the  weak 


HELPING  THE  FUTURE  8i 

habit,  the  social  cowardice  that  now  toys  with  the 
cigarette  and  tomorrow  dares  not  say  "No"  to  the 
glass  of  wine  or  mug  of  beer — all  stand  between  us 
and  the  future.  The  "good  time"  that  leaves  us  with 
a  headache,  the  party  that  leaves  us  with  a  heartache 
or  a  sense  of  wasted  hours,  the  dress  that  has  cost 
undue  money  and  strength,  making  the  light  of  the 
eye  less  beautiful  or  the  love  of  the  heart  less  mani- 
fest in  the  face,  lessening  the  kindly  earnestness,  the 
modest  self-forgetfulness — all  these  will  darken  the 
future.  The  foul  word,  the  impure  thought,  the 
coarse  jest,  the  profane  speech — all  reach  into  the 
future,  all  touch  and  hurt  the  life  that  is  to  come. 

The  dude  with  his  big-headed  cane,  the  belle  with 
her  long  train,  pinched  waist,  flashing  colors,  and 
other  vulgarities  of  dress,  are  hurting,  not  helping, 
the  life  of  the  future;  but  the  girl  who  ornaments 
herself  with  intelligence,  who  adorns  her  heart  with 
kindness  and  earnestness,  whose  spirit  is  so  sweetly 
modest,  kind,  and  thoughtful  that  these  qualities 
somehow  reach  the  very  hem  of  her  garment,  per- 
vade the  ribbon  with  which  she  ties  her  hair,  and 
make  gracious  and  graceful  the  dress  with  which  she 
obscures  herself,  is  helping  the  future,  is  making 
more  beautiful  the  lives  and  homes  that  are  to  be. 
And  so  the  boy  who  makes  his  companionship  valu- 
able because  he  can  say  "No,"  whose  speech  is  such 
as  he  would  never  blush  to  use  in  the  presence  of 
mother  and  sister ;  the  boy  whose  heart  is  open  to 
kindly  impulses,  whose  mind  is  trained  to  think,   is 


82  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

surely  making  the  future  more  blessed  to  someone 
because  he  has  lived.  There  is  going  to  be  a  home 
somewhere  the  more  noble,  there  is  going  to  be  a 
government  more  pure,  there  is  going  to  be  a  world 
richer,  because  he  has  lived;  there  is  going  to  be  a 
future  fuller  of  heaven,  because  he  rooted  out  some 
evil  weed  that  otherwise  would  have  grown,  and 
planted  in  its  place  some  good  seed  that  grew. 

Yes,  if  we  would  help  the  life  of  the  future,  we 
must  live  now,  by  putting  clean  hearts  into  sound 
bodies.  Brave  minds  must  gather  helpful  thought 
into  the  granaries  of  the  soul,  so  that  in  time  of 
famine  there  will  be  plenty. 

"Remember  that  today  will  never  dawn  again," 
is  a  word  of  the  great  Dante.  Do  not  wait  for  any- 
thing. Begin  now.  Every  day  is  confirmation  day 
in  the  church  of  the  living  God. 

Not    enjoyment    and    not    sorrow 

Is  our  destined  end  or  way, 
But  to  act,  that  each  tomorrow 

Find  us   farther  than  today. 

Do  not  wait  for  graduation.  Every  day  is  graduation 
day  in  the  college  of  life.  The  good  Buddha,  who 
went  off  and  hid  himself  in  a  cave  on  the  margin  of 
a  great  forest  hoping  that  he  might  find  the  truth, 
waited  for  light  that  should  show  him  how  to  help  the 
world.  But  no  light  came  to  him,  and  he  was  grow- 
ing sick  and  discouraged,  when  one  day  a  shepherd 
boy  passed  with  his  flock  of  sheep.  Buddha  noticed 
that  this  boy  was  carrying  a  footsore  lamb,  and  he 


HELPING  THE  FUTURE  83 

said:  "The  boy  is  doing  better  than  I."  So  he  left 
his  cave,  sought  the  world  to  mingle  with  men  and 
women;  and  light  came  to  him,  so  that  he  helped  the 
future  mightily.  How  beautiful  to  thinji  of  the  mil- 
lions of  flowers  that  are  each  morning  placed  upon 
the  bloodless  shrines  of  Buddha,  who  taught  gentle- 
ness to  millions  of  the  human  race! 

The  author  of  "Tip-Cat,"  "Miss  Toosey's  Mis- 
sion," and  "Laddie,"  wrote  a  story  called  "Our 
Little  Ann."  It  is  about  a  brave  little  girl  who  had 
such  a  hard  time  of  it  as  one  could  scarcely  think — 
real  sorrow,  actual  heartache.  She  did  not  go  off 
into  a  corner  to  pine  and  grow  pale,  and  break  her 
little  heart  beyond  all  possibilities  of  mending,  as  so 
many  girls  in  and  out  of  story-books  do  when  things 
go  wrong  with  them;  but  she  turned  right  to  and 
worked  the  harder,  and  found  that  "there  is  nothing 
like  a  little  hurry  for  keeping  down  sentiment  when  it 
threatens  to  become  unmanageable."  She  learned 
that 

A  capital  recipe  for  a  broken  heart  is  to  have  no  time  to  think 
of  it,  and  to  be  obliged  to  keep  up  a  bright  exterior  for  the  sake 
of  others.  After  a  time  the  brightness  penetrates  below  the 
surface,  and  when  you  have  time  to  think  of  your  own  troubles 
you  find  a  heart,  if  not  quite  mended,  still  not  quite  so  hope- 
lessly crushed  as  it  seemed  at  first. 

I  think  little  Ann  was  right.  It  is  selfish  hearts  that 
get  broken  beyond  mending.  It  is  lazy  lives  that  are 
easily  crushed.  The  self-seeking  life  is  a  despondent 
life. 


84  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

In  this  book  of  "Little  Ann"  is  the  story  of  a 
plain  old  miller  for  whom,  when  he  came  to  die,  they 
stopped  the  mill  that  it  might  not  disturb  him.  But  in 
the  morning  he  was  very  restless.  He  could  not  speak, 
but  he  listened  and  pointed  to  the  watch,  and  seemed  to 
be  wanting  something.  Finally  the  old  mill-hand  dis- 
covered the  trouble.  "Dash  un! — Blest  if  he  ain't 
listening  for  she;"  and  off  he  went.  It  was  six 
o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  cracked  old  mill-bell 
rang  out,  the  old  mill-wheel  with  its  creaking  machin- 
ery started,  and  the  bedstead  in  the  neighboring 
house  shook;  but  the  old  miller  rolled  over  and  went 
to  sleep.  Keep  at  it,  boys  and  girls !  Find  the  music 
of  life  in  the  mill-wheel.  Find  rest  in  the  toil.  If 
you  would  help  the  life  of  the  future,  be  at  it  now. 

This,  then  is  our  first  rule.  Help  the  life  of 
the  future  by  living  in  the  now.  Our  second  rule 
will  be :  Help  the  life  of  the  future  by  living  for  the 
now.  The  good  Zoroaster  did  not  know  of  America; 
he  did  not  think  of  any  Chicago,  twenty-five  centuries 
away;  but  he  knew  a  great  deal  about  the  life  of 
Persia;  he  thought  much  of  the  pains,  and  the  still 
more  distressing  pleasures  of  the  people  about  him, 
and  he  was  anxious  to  help  them.  He  became  pos- 
sessed of  a  purpose  to  improve  the  life  of  his  time ;  and 
we  reap  the  harvest  of  his  desire.  So  it  is  always. 
The  man  who  thinks  of  what  the  world  will  say  of 
him  a  hundred  years  hence  will  very  likely  not  be 
heard  of  at  the  end  of  that  hundred  years.  The  man 
who  remembers  himself  too  well  today  will  surely  be 


HELPING  THE  FUTURE  85 

forgotten  before  many  days ;  but  he  who  forgets  him- 
self today  may  be  remembered  in  a  hundred  years. 
But  what  if  he  is  not?  Never  mind  about  that.  Suffi- 
cient it  is  to  know  that  self-seeking  is  mean,  self- 
forgetting  is  noble.  Put  yourself  out  of  the  way 
that  you  may  put  somebody  else  in  the  way.  Remem- 
ber the  little  girl  in  Whittier's  "In  School  Days," 
who  said: 

"I'm  sorry  that  I  spelt  the  word  ; 
I  hate  to  go  above  you 
Because" — the    brown    eyes    lower    fell — 
"Because,  you   see,   I   love  you." 

Still  memory  to  a  gray-haired  man 
That   sweet   child-face   is    showing. 

Dear  girl !     The  grasses  on  her   grave 
Have  forty  years  been  growing. 

He  lives  to  learn  in  life's  hard  school, 

How  few  who  pass  above  him 
Lament  their  triumph  and  his  loss, 
Like  her, — because  they  love  him. 

Have  you  heard  the  story  of  Margaret,  the  Irish 
baker-woman  who  used  to  give  crackers  to  the  hungry 
little  street-urchins  of  New  Orleans?  As  she  prospered 
in  business  and  rose  out  of  her  poverty,  she  found 
more  ways  of  helping,  until  she  was  known  as  the 
friend  of  the  friendless  by  all  the  poor  in  the  city. 
And  when  she  died.  New  Orleans  had  a  beautiful 
statue  of  Margaret  cut  in  marble,  with  a  little  plaid 
shawl  over  her  shoulders,  dressed  just  as  she  used  to 
dress  as  a  baker-woman,  and  they  put  that  statue  in  a 
public  place,  which  they  called  the  Margaret  Square. 


86  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

It  stands  directly  in  front  of  a  beautiful  home  for 
orphan  children  which  she  helped  establish.  I  believe 
it  is  the  only  statue  of  a  woman  that  graces  a  public 
place  out  of  doors  in  the  United  States;  at  least  it 
was  so  at  the  time  of  its  erection.  Margaret 
never  thought  of  that  statue.  She  lived  for  the  now, 
and  the  future  could  not  spare  her. 

I  want  to  remind  you  of  the  story  of  another 
woman  who,  when  ''society  folk"  and  the  people  who 
lived  on  "Quality  Hill"  and  went  riding  on  the 
high-toned  avenues,  had  turned  against  a  good  man 
and  were  going  to  put  him  out  of  the  city — indeed, 
put  him  to  death,  as  they  finally  did — rushed  in, 
bathed  his  feet  with  her  tears,  wiped  them  with  her 
hair,  and  anointed  them  with  the  only  valuable  thing 
she  seemed  to  have — some  perfumed  ointment  which 
was  to  prepare  her  body  for  the  grave.  It  was 
costly,  and  poor  people  used  to  save  their  money 
while  in  health,  so  that  they  might  have  the  ointment 
in  the  house  ready  for  the  solemn  ceremony.  She  did 
not  think  of  the  future.  That  woman  forgot  herself. 
She  saw  that  there  was  a  good  man  abused,  a  brave 
man  imposed  upon,  a  loving  soul  hated,  and  she 
thought  she  could  do  something  to  stem  the  tide;  at 
least  she  would  show  him  that  there  was  one  heart 
that  loved  him,  one  soul  that  had  been  helped  by  his 
words.  The  people  who  stood  around  said :  "This 
is  wasteful.  Here  is  three  hundred  pennies'  worth, 
and  the  poor  might  have  had  it."  But  the  wise  man 
for  whom   she   had   poured   out   her   ointment   said : 


HELPING  THE  FUTURE  87 

"Let  her  alone.  She  hath  wrought  a  good  work. 
Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  wheresoever  this  gospel  shall 
be  preached  in  the  whole  world,  that  also  which  this 
woman  hath  done  shall  be  spoken  of  a^  a  memorial 
of  her."  She  lived  for  the  now,  and  in  that  way  she 
helped  the  life  of  the  future. 

Let  me  once  again  remind  you  of  the  tender  story 
of  that  good  man  himself.  He  was  born  into  a  car- 
penter's home,  grew  up  in  simple  peasant  ways,  obedi- 
ent to  father  and  mother;  but  he  learned  to  pity  the 
people  who  were  restless  with  selfish  passions  and 
excited  over  unworthy  aims,  and  he  began  to  teach 
them  in  a  quiet,  simple  fashion  to  care  less  for  things 
and  more  for  thoughts;  not  to  be  anxious  for  show, 
but  to  seek  after  substance.  He  told  them  not  to  hate, 
but  to  love.  He  made  them  feel  how  true  his  lessons 
were;  he  showed  them  how  powerful  love  was  by  lov- 
ing them.  He  had  kind  words  for  the  people  who 
were  considered  very  wicked.  He  talked  with  vulgar 
foreigners,  and  he  ate  with  very  common  people, 
such  as  the  respectable  folks  would  have  nothing  to 
do  with.  At  last  these  very  "proper  people"  grew 
very  indignant;  they  misunderstood  him;  hence  they 
misrepresented  him  and  caused  him  to  be  put  to  death 
on  the  cross;  but  that  kind,  poor  man,  that  obscure, 
loving  peasant,  that  carpenter  who  worked  for  his 
time,  for  his  "now,"  somehow  helped  the  future  more 
than  any  other  man  that  ever  lived. 

So  I  might  go  on  to  my  sermon's  end  with  stories 
to  show  that  the  best  way  to  help  the  future  is  by 


88  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

helping  the  "now,"  and  that  you  can  help  the  "now" 
only  by  living  now. 

But  you  knew  all  this  before.  Your  difficulty  is 
to  know  how  to  do  it.  Very  right,  my  children.  Let 
us  see  if  we  can  find  any  help  here.  How  can  we  live 
now  and  for  the  "now"  in  such  a  way  that  we  shall 
help  the  future?  In  the  first  place,  we  must  be  con- 
tent to  be  ourselves.  The  frog  in  the  fable  came  to 
grief  because  he  tried  to  make  himself  as  big  as  an 
ox.  I  have  seen  men — yes,  and  women  too —  come 
to  a  similar  catastrophe  because  they  were  so  "puffed 
up;"  they  filled  themselves  with  "make-believe"  until 
they  burst;  or,  even  if  they  did  not  burst,  they  could 
not  hide  the  fact  that  their  greatness  was  mostly  a 
bubble.  If  you  have  a  small  head,  make  the  most  of  it; 
use  it  well,  my  lad,  and  do  not  try  to  make  people 
believe  that  it  is  larger  than  it  is;  for  that  will  bring 
on  one  of  the  worst  diseases,  namely,  mental  dropsy, 
sometimes  called  the  "big-head." 

Be  yourself!  Think  your  own  thought,  not  mine 
or  anybody's  else.  Use  your  own  hands,  not 
another's.  Pay  your  own  nickel  rather  than  your 
father's  dollar,  to  help  the  cause  that  is  worthy  your 
love. 

In  the  long-ago,  when  folks  began  to  build  the 
great  cathedral  of  York,  there  was  not  much  money 
to  be  had,  but  there  was  a  deal  of  timber  on  the 
mountain-side,  and  the  hills  were  made  of  splendid 
stone,  that  might  be  had  for  the  quarrying.  So  each 
brought  what  he  could ;  and  over  one  of  the  great 


HELPING  THE  FUTURE  89 

entrances  today  there  is  the  image  of  two  knights  in 
armor,  one  carrying  a  block  of  wood,  the  other  a  big 
round  stone.  It  was  all  they  had,  but  the  giving  of 
that  made  them  knightly. 

So,  my  little  friends,  boys  and  girls  though  you 
are,  you  can  bring  to  the  "now"  your  own  little 
block  of  wood,  though  it  be  only  a  chip  to  chink  a 
crack  with ;  your  own  unhewn  stone,  though  it  be  but 
a  pebble  to  fill  a  corner  behind  a  big  hewn  stone. 
Doing  this,  you  will  contribute  to  the  present  so  well 
that  the  future  will  have  noble  cathedrals  to  worship 
in. 

The  poor  widow  who  had  only  two  mites,  which 
make  a  farthing,  perhaps  half  a  cent  in  our  money, 
put  it  into  the  contribution  box.  Then  the  wealthy  folks 
came  and  threw  in  out  of  their  abundance;  but  the 
good  teacher  told  his  pupils  that  this  poor  widow  had 
cast  in  more  than  they  all,  for  they  did  cast  in  of  their 
superfluity;  but  she  cast  in  all  that  she  had,  even  her 
living.  How  little  did  she  do  for  her  present,  how 
much  did  she  do  for  our  future!  It  was  nearly  two 
thousand  years  ago  that  she  gave  her  half -cent,  and 
all  the  way  down  the  ages  life  has  been  made  more 
generous,  the  world  more  thoughtful,  and  men  and 
women  more  earnest  because  of  her  contribution. 

Two  mites,  two  drops,  but  all  her  house  and  land, 
Fell   from  an  earnest  heart  but  trembling  hand, 
The  others'  wanton  wealth  foamed  high  and  brave. 
The  others   cast  away;   she,   only,   gave. 

You    must    do    your    own    work,    not    another's. 


90  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Better  the  half-made  thought  of  a  Httle  girl  or  boy, 
with  a  girl  or  boy  handling  it,  than  the  big  thought 
of  a  philosopher,  with  a  little  girl  or  boy  trying  to 
handle  it  and  not  knowing  what  to  do  with  it. 

I  remember  another  story,  which  has  been  done 
into  a  poem  by  a  great  poet.  It  is  about  a  little  wool- 
carder  who  was  tired  of  praising  God  in  his  simple 
way  and  wished  he  might  praise  God  in  the  high  way 
in  which  the  pope  at  Rome  praises  on  Easter  Day. 
Gabriel,  hearing  his  prayer,  came  down  and  took  his 
place  in  the  shop,  and  the  boy  grew  to  be  the  pope. 
But  God  missed  his  little  human  praise,  and  the  great 
pope  was  glad  to 

Go  back  and  praise  again 

The  early  way. 

Back  to  the  cell  and  poor  employ : 

Resume  the  craftsman  and  the  boy ! 

My  children,  your  thought  may  not  be  as  big  as 
the  thoughts  of  the  creed  or  the  bishop's  or  the 
pope's;  but  if  they  are  your  thoughts,  they  are  better 
for  you,  they  are  better  for  the  world,  because  you 
can  convert  them  into  deeds. 

When  David,  the  shepherd  boy,  went  forth  to 
fight  the  giant,  Saul,  the  tall  king,  wanted  him  to 
take  his  big  sword,  and  wear  his  heavy  armor;  but 
if  he  had,  he  would  have  been  beaten.  He  could  not 
use  the  sword  of  Saul,  but  he  took  along  his  own 
sling-shot.  He  sought  a  little  pebble,  just  the  right 
size,  by  the  brook,  and  with  that  he  felled  the  giant. 
That  is  the  way  he  "helped  the  life  of  the  future." 


HELPING  THE  FUTURE  91 

It  is  the  way  you  must  do  it ;  you  must  be  yourselves. 
This  cheerful,  happy  diligence  in  today,  and  for 
today,  how  are  you  to  realize  it  so  that  you  may  be 
"such  as  help  the  life  of  the  future?"  I  will  try  to 
give  you  three  words  that  will  point  the  way. 

1.  The  first  word  is  Beauty.  Learn  to  realize 
that  anything  should  fit  into  everything;  that  every 
fragment  is  a  part  of  the  whole;  that  harmony  gilds 
your  life  and  all  life.  Spring  buds  confirm  our  aspira- 
tions, and  the  songs  of  the  birds  encourage  our  Easter 
hopes.  I  have  read  that  the  Greek  artificers  used  to 
sing  at  their  work  to  lighten  the  burden.  When  a 
boy,  I  used  to  watch  the  raftsmen  on  the  Wisconsin 
River,  as  they  stood  in  the  cold  water,  sometimes 
knee-deep,  sometimes  waist-deep,  pulling  at  the  ropes 
that  would  dislodge  the  raft  from  its  entanglement; 
and  often  when  the  task  was  hardest  they  would 
round  their  "He-O-Heaves"  into  a  song,  thus  reduc- 
ing the  strain  by  rhythm;  and  the  raft  would 
swing  by.  When  a  nurse  in  an  army  hospital,  I  once 
found  a  soldier  boy  whistling  "Yankee  Doodle"  while 
lying  on  his  cot  with  an  angry  bullet  wound  through 
his  thigh.  'Tt  is  getting  better,  is  it?"  I  said.  "No, 
it  is  getting  so  much  worse  that  I  can't  stand  it  any 
other  way." 

2.  The  second  word  is  Love.  The  world  promptly 
forgets  the  haters.  It  is  loath  to  part  with  its  lovers. 
Zoroaster's  ideal,  as  expressed  in  our  text,  can  be 
understood  only  by  realizing  that  other  text,  which 
we  find   in   the  Chinese  scriptures :     "Religions  are 


92  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

many  and  different,  but  reason  is  one.  We  arc  all 
brethren."  Here  is  the  secret  of  that  life  that  is  not 
for  self.  Some  day  you  will  read  Romola,  a  great 
story  written  by  a  very  great  and  noble  woman,  and 
in  it  you  will  read  of  the  little  boy  Lillo,  who  said : 
"I  would  like  to  be  something  that  would  make  me  a 
great  man  and  very  happy  besides,  something  that 
would  not  hinder  me  from  having  a  good  deal  of 
pleasure."     But  the  good  Romola  said: 

It  is  only  a  very  poor  sort  of  happiness  that  could  ever 
come  by  caring  very  much  about  our  own  narrow  pleasures. 
We  can  have  the  highest  happiness  only  by  having  wide  thoughts 
and  much  feeling  for  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  this  happiness 
sometimes  brings  pain.  You  could  not  tell  it  from  pain  only 
that  you  would  choose  it  before  everything  else  because  your 
soul  sees  it  is  good. 

I  know  a  true  story  of  a  boy  who,  when  poor, 
neglected,  and  friendless,  found  himself  befriended 
by  a  wicked  man,  by  whom  he  was  led  to  do  bad 
things.  He  was  sent  to  the  state  prison.  While 
there  he  sickened;  the  prison  diet  did  not  agree  with 
him,  and  the  doctor  thought  he  had  not  long  to  live. 
A  fellow-convict  managed  to  find  a  way  of  stealing 
some  sugar  for  the  benefit  of  his  sick  cellmate.  The 
sick  boy  was  detected  with  it,  and,  because  he  would 
not  tell  how  he  got  it,  he  was  put  into  the  solitary 
cell  and  kept  there  until  he  fainted  away  and  was 
carried  out  apparently  dead.  I  do  not  know  whom  to 
blame  or  how  to  rebuke,  but  I  know  there  was  great 
blame  somewhere.     I  see  also  much  that  was  beauti- 


HELPING  THE  FUTURE  93 

ful  in  the  friendship  of  those  two  convicts  in  the  cell, 
and  to  think  of  that  beauty  is  to  make  it  easy  to  love 
them  and  to  work  for  the  world. 

No,  we  must  never  lose  sight  of  the  inspiring 
fact  that  humanity  is  one,  and  that  the  cord  that 
binds  it  together  is  not  vice,  but  virtue. 

3.  Lastly,  I  come  to  the  beautiful  word  that  holds 
all  the  other  words.  It  stands  for  the  great  thing  that 
makes  all  these  other  things  possible,  and  enables 
every  one  of  you  to  become  "such  as  help  the  life  of 
the  future."  This  third  and  last  word  is  Trust.  We 
preachers  like  to  call  it  faith,  perhaps;  but  I  think 
"trust"  is  a  better  way  of  spelling  it  for  children,  and 
we  are  all  children.  We  have  had  serious  talks 
together  about  God,  and  we  have  learned  that  that  is 
faith  in  God  which  is  trust  in  the  right.  Believing 
that  five  times  five  are  always  twenty-five,  we  believe 
in  the  same  way  that  truth  is  always  better  than  false- 
hood ;  that  honesty  always  triumphs  in  the  end ;  that 
nothing  pays  but  right. 

Robert  Browning  tells  a  pretty  love-story  of  a 
beautiful  young  woman  who  lived  with  her  aunt,  the 
queen;  and  this  beautiful  young  woman  loved  a  noble 
young  man ;  but  the  young  woman  was  afraid  of  the 
queen  and  begged  her  lover  not  to  tell  the  truth,  but 
to  try  to  win  her  by  a  delusion,  by  some  little  trick, 
or  sham,  or  fraud.  The  story  shows  how  disastrous 
was  the  result,  how  it  made  the  three  very  miserable, 
and  how  much  nobler  was  the  position  of  the  young 
man,  who  believed  that  to  keep  the  right  end  in  view 


94  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

was  to  make  all  things  serve.  Now,  that  young 
woman  represents  the  infidelity  that  you  ought  to  be 
afraid  of.  Hers  was  the  real  atheism — the  belief  that 
a  lie  is  better  than  the  truth,  distrust  in  the  power  of 
honesty.  To  believe  in  God  is  to  believe,  with  Emer- 
son, that  the  world  is  made  for  excellence;  that  all 
the  stars  are  in  league  with  virtue;  that  from  the 
daisy  to  Jesus  there  is  a  law  which,  obeyed,  will 
bless;  which,  disobeyed,  will  blight.  This  is  what 
will  make  us  strong — to  find  truth  in  everything  and 
right  the  winning  principle  everywhere. 

"Difference  of  worship  has  divided  men  into 
many  nations.  Of  all  their  doctrines  I  have  chosen 
one — the  love  of  God,"  said  a  Persian  poet.  The  love 
of  God  is  the  love  of  good.  To  love  the  good  is  to 
believe  that  duty  is  the  only  road  to  travel  on;  and, 
traveling  that  road,  though  it  be  through  Persian  rose 
gardens  in  the  name  of  Zoroaster,  along  the  broad 
Ganges  in  the  name  of  Buddha,  in  humble  toil  here  in 
America  in  the  name  of  Jesus,  or  following  in  the 
broadest  love  which  is  the  spirit  of  all  these,  or  even 
groping  blindly  for  it  without  the  help  of  any  of 
these,  is  to  travel  the  faith  road,  is  to  follow  the 
beckoning  finger  of  God.     This  is  Trust. 

"The  Smalls"  is  the  name  of  a  rock,  nearly  cov- 
ered by  water,  in  the  British  Channel,  which  was  the 
cause  of  many  shipwrecks  and  the  loss  of  many  lives, 
until  some  hundred  and  forty  or  fifty  years  ago,  when 
a  band  of  hardy  Cornish  miners  said :  "It  shall  be 
so  no  more.     We  will  go  and  plant  a  signal  on  that 


HELPING  THE  FUTURE  95 

treacherous  rock."  They  sailed  out  some  twenty 
miles  from  the  main  land  on  a  pleasant  day,  and 
began  to  drill  holes  in  the  rock.  They  had  partly 
soldered  one  long  iron  rod  into  the  rpck  when  the 
weather  suddenly  changed,  and  the  cutter  on  which 
they  came  had  to  bear  off  to  avoid  shipwreck.  The 
storm  increased,  and  for  two  days  and  two  nights 
those  battered  men  clung  to  that  half-fastened  rod  of 
iron  in  a  desperate  struggle  for  life.  At  last  the  wind 
subsided,  and  the  boat  returned  with  nourishment. 
Did  they  abandon  their  task?  No.  All  the  more  did 
they  cling  to  it.  They  sunk  iron  staples  into  the 
rocks  and  lashed  themselves  fast  while  they  worked 
amid  the  breakers,  and  erected  a  light-house  that 
stood  for  a  hundred  years  on  legs  of  iron,  saving  life 
and  guiding  the  commerce  of  the  world,  until  it  was 
supplanted  by  a  still  more  lasting  one  of  unyielding 
granite.  I  doubt  if  the  names  of  any  of  those  Cornish 
miners  have  been  saved.  Their  names  vanished  with 
their  faces  and  were  lost  with  their  forms ;  but,  with 
the  love  of  man  in  their  hearts  and  the  power  of  God 
strengthening  their  human  consciences,  they  did  their 
duty  then  and  there,  though  the  sea  and  the  sky  were 
arrayed  against  them.  In  this  high  spirit,  after  this 
divine  fashion,  must  we  reinforce  our  faith  and  con- 
firm our  life,  if  we  are  to  be  such  as  help  the  life 
of  that  future  which  belongs  to  the  eternity  of  God. 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE 


THE  CROWNING  DAY 

The  morning  hangs  its  signal 

Upon   the   mountain's  crestj 
While  all  the  sleeping  valleys 

In  silent  darkness  fest; 
From  peak  to  peak  it  flashes, 

It  laughs  along  the  sky 
That  the  crowning  day  is  coming  by  and  by! 

Chorus: 

Oh,  the  croivning  day  is  coming. 

Is  coming   by  atid  by! 
We  can  see  the  rose  of  morning, 

A  glory  in  the  sky. 
And  that  splendor  on  the  hill-tops 
O'er  all  the  land  shall  lie 
In  the  crowning  day  that's  coming  by  and  by! 

Above  the  generations 

The  lonely  prophets  rise — 
The  truth  flings  dawn  and  day-star 

Within  their  glowing  eyes; 
From  heart  to  heart  it  brightens. 

It  draweth   ever  nigh. 
Till  it  crowneth  all  men  thinking,  by  and  by! 

The  soul  hath  lifted  moments 

Above  the  drift  of  days, 
When  life's  great  meaning  breakcth 

In  sunrise  on  our  ways; 
From  hour  to  hour  it  haunts  us, 

The  vision   drazveth   nigh, 
Till  it  crowneth  living,  dying,  by  and  by! 

— W.    C.    Gannett 


VI 

SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE 

However    things    may    seem 
No  good  thing   is  failure, 
No  evil  thing  success. 

— Samuel  Longfellow 

We  have  come  again  to  the  Easter  tide.      The 
Confirmation  Class  has  traveled  with  me  into  the  life 
and  thought  of  far-off  ages  and  distant  lands.     We 
have  gone  around  the  world  together  in  our  studies. 
I  have  asked  you  to  believe  with  the  poet  Longfellow, 
That  in  even  savage  bosoms 
There  are  longings,  yearnings,  strivings 
For  the   good   they  comprehend   not, 
That  the  feeble  hands  and  helpless, 
Groping  blindly  in  the  darkness 
Touch  God's  right  hand  in  that  darkness 
And  are  lifted  up  and  strengthened. 

We  have  looked  into  the  bibles  of  many  nations, 
and  I  have  tried  to  show  you  that  we  found  there 
many  phrases  for  the  one  reality,  many  names  for  the 
same  unspeakable  beauty  and  power.  We  have 
caught  accents  from  the  teachings  of  Zoroaster  and 
Confucius,  Buddha  and  Mohammed,  and  we  have 
found  that  they,  as  well  as  Moses  and  Jesus,  taught 
men  to  be  truthful  and  honest,  and  that  they  did  help, 
and  still  do  help,  men  and  women  to  be  patient,  kind, 
and  reverent.     In  imagination  we  have  stood  before 

99 


100  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

the  unquenched  fires  on  the  altars  of  the  Parsis,  we 
have  walked  into  the  temples  of  Buddhism,  visited 
the  porcelain  prayer-houses  of  China  as  well  as  Chris- 
tian cathedral  and  chapel,  and  found  much  that  was 
beautiful,  refining,  and  helpful  in  all  of  them.  We 
have  looked  into  Christianity  a  little,  and  found,  or 
thought  we  found  it,  a  curious  network  of  many 
different  threads  of  different  colors;  but  we  found 
something  in  each  of  these  threads  that  was  admir- 
able. 

The  Catholic  church  has  its  great  cathedrals,  its 
splendid  ritual,  its  brave  men  and  gentle  women.  The 
Protestant  church  has  its  Luther,  its  Fox,  its  Knox, 
and  its  Wesley.  We  have  looked  into  the  story  of 
Christian  heresies  and  have  not  been  afraid  of  the 
Christian  heretics.  We  have  wished  we  could  know 
more  of  the  story  of  Arius,  of  the  Socinii,  the  brave 
Servetus  who  endured  martyr  flames  without  flinching, 
the  truth-seeking  Priestley,  the  gentle  Channing, 
the  God-trusting  Hosea  Ballou,  and  the  splendidly 
earnest  Theodore  Parker.  We  have  listened  to  some 
of  the  songs  and  committed  to  memory  some  of  the 
lines  of  the  forward-looking  Lowell,  the  man-loving 
Whittier,  the  clear-eyed  Emerson,  representative  of 
the  round  world ;  and  we  have  found  much  to  admire 
in  all  of  these.  They  have  taught  us  to  believe  that 
the  world  is  tending  toward  a  universal  faith,  that  it 
is  yet  to  discover  that  there  is  but  one  religion  and 
one  morality. 

Now,  at  the  end  of  our  year's  study  I  should  like 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE  loi 

to  give  you  the  highest,  and  perhaps  the  most  diffi- 
cult, lesson  of  all — the  lesson  indicated  in  the  text  of 
your  own  choosing.  It  is  a  familiar  text  to  us.  We 
have  often  read  it  together  in  our  Sunday-school 
service.  It  is  inscribed  upon  one  of  our  mantels  and 
looks  down  upon  us  whenever  we  are  in  this  church- 
home  of  ours.  But  back  of  our  service-book,  back 
of  our  American  poet,  aye,  before  the  high  sayings  of 
Jesus  were  uttered,  the  good  pagan  Socrates  said  the 
same  thing  in  about  the  same  way :  "Know  of  a 
truth  that  no  evil  can  happen  to  a  good  man  either  in 
life  or  in  death." 

"Let  us  take  this  mantel  text  and  see  what  Mr. 
Jones  can  do  with  it  when  he  comes  to  preach  our 
sermon,"  was  the  remark  of  one  of  your  number 
when  you  were  seeking  your  motto.  So  you  have 
given  me  the  text  as  a  sort  of  challenge.  You,  with 
many,  many  of  your  elders,  have  asked  me,  "Do  you 
really  believe  that  motto  ?" 

If  I  expect  you  to  believe  it,  I  must  try  to  show 
how  it  is  true.  I  must  try  to  make  room  for  all  the 
disappointing  facts  that  seem  to  contradict  it.  This 
is  not  a  text  to  be  settled  by  argument.  The  great 
truths  are  never  proved  true  by  discussion;  they  are 
proved  true  by  experience.  This  is  the  text  to  be 
established  by  life,  not  by  logic. 

However    things    may    seem, 
No  good  thing  is   failure, 
No   evil  thing  success. 

I  wish  I  could  say  that  no  bad  man  ever  succeeds 


I02  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

in  business,  and  that  no  good  man  eventually  fails  in 
business.  I  wish  I  could  tell  you  that  "honesty  is  the 
best  policy"  to  get  rich  by,  that  only  worth  eventually 
triumphs  in  trade.  But  I  cannot  say  this.  It  may  be 
centuries  yet  before  these  things  can  be  truthfully 
said.  I  admit  the  arguments  you  have  urged.  The 
tricky  often  do  get  ahead,  the  selfish  do  grow  wealthy, 
the  dishonest  sometimes  make  money,  build  great 
houses,  and  furnish  them  with  beautiful  things. 

I  wish  I  could  tell  you  that  evil  ways  always 
bring  disease  and  pain,  and  that  right  living  gives 
health,  good  sleep,  and  sound  digestion;  but  I  cannot 
even  say  this,  because  I  know  that  as  yet  many  men 
of  low  moral  standards  have  good  digestion  and 
splendid  bodies,  while  many  earnest  and  noble  men 
and  women  are  racked  with  pain  and  crippled  by 
disease. 

I  wish  I  could  tell  you  that  goodness  always 
brings  happiness  in  this  world,  and  that  the  mean 
man  is  always  miserable;  but  I  cannot,  for  the  very 
opposite  is  often  true;  often  the  sensitive  conscience 
carries  the  woes  of  the  world  in  its  heart,  and  it  can- 
not be  happy.  Buddha,  though  surrounded  with  all 
the  luxuries  of  a  palace,  heard  everywhere  the  cry  of 
the  suffering.  As  he  rode  out  in  search  of  pleasure, 
he  saw  the  aged,  the  sick,  and  the  overworked.  His 
goodness  did  not  make  him  happy.  Many  a  wicked 
man  does  have  a  jolly  time,  his  rest  is  unbroken  by 
duty's  calls,  and  his  sleep  is  undisturbed  by  pity's 
darts. 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE  103 

I  wish  I  could  tell  you  that  only  the  good  are 
respected  and  trusted  by  their  fellows,  that  excellence 
is  the  only  condition  of  fame  and  respect;  but  I  can- 
not forget  that  on  every  election  day  .good  citizens 
vote  for  bad  men,  and  that  the  halls  of  our  Congress 
often  echo  with  the  voices  of  those  who  have  won 
their  way  there  by  low  tricks  and  high  selfishness. 

If,  then,  the  good  are  oftentimes  poor,  sick, 
ignored,  and  despised,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
bad  are  rich,  healthy,  and  merry,  how  can  I  ask  you 
to  believe  that 

No  good  thing  is  failure, 
No  evil  thing  success? 

If  our  text  is  a  true  one,  we  must  find  some 
other  measure  of  life  than  money,  health,  or 
pleasure. 

First,  let  us  hold  our  text  off  at  arm's  length  and 
notice  how  history  reverses  the  decisions  of  a  day. 
God  seems  to  honor  those  whom  men  despise.  Most 
of  the  healthy,  wealthy,  and  merry  people  of  Athens 
who  lived  four  hundred  years  before  Jesus  seem  to 
have  been  forgotten  and  lost;  we  can  only  guess  at 
the  names  of  a  few  of  them.  But  the  poor  stone- 
cutter, the  homely  and  serious  Socrates,  the  one  man 
in  Athens  who  seemed  at  that  time  to  have  made  a 
complete  failure  of  himself,  lives  today,  and  is  loved, 
honored,  and  powerful. 

Nineteen-hundred  years  ago  there  were  rich  men  in 
Jerusalem  who  had  houses,  horses,  and  land,  and 
there  was  a  poor  peasant  who  had  tried  his  hand  at 


I04  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

carpentry  and  perhaps  a  little  fishing,  and  had  prob- 
ably not  made  much  of  a  success  of  anything.  He 
was  abused  and  put  to  death ;  and  still  history  points 
to  him  as  the  most  successful  man  that  ever  walked 
the  hills  of  Palestine.  Today  his  name  is  the  most 
powerful  name  in  the  world,  and  his  face  beams 
through  the  centuries  as  the  face  of  a  god.  Pilate, 
Caiphas,  and  their  followers,  who  seemed  to  suc- 
ceed, failed;  Jesus,  whose  life  failed,  succeeded. 
Something  made  triumph  for  him  even  on  the  cross. 

Martin  Luther  was  so  poor  that  he  had  to  earn 
money  for  his  education  by  playing  his  flute  on  the 
streets,  and  when  he  became  a  great  preacher  he  had 
to  eke  out  a  very  meager  income  by  trying  his  hand  at 
gardening,  clock-making,  and  wood-turning;  yet  he 
was  greater  than  any  crowned  head  in  Europe  at  that 
very  time.  History  again  says  that  what  seems  fail- 
ure is  very  often  a  magnificent  success. 

God  measures  a  deed,  not  as  we  do,  by  the  amount 
of  money  it  brings  or  the  happiness  it  yields,  but  by 
its  usefulness,  its  value  to  eternity.  Life  is  measured 
by  its  service,  not  by  its  dollars.  Abraham  Lincoln 
is  one  of  the  saddest  figures  in  American  history. 
His  youth  was  pinched  with  poverty,  his  maturity 
furrowed  with  care,  his  reward  cut  short  by  an 
assassin's  bullet;  and  still,  what  are  Vanderbilt's  mil- 
lions, John  L.  Sullivan's  muscles,  or  the  sound  sleep  of 
a  thousand  selfish  athletes  compared  to  the  sad  suc- 
cesses of  Abraham  Lincoln?  Was  he  not  one  of  the 
splendidly  successful  men  of  America? 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE  105 

We  find,  then,  that  one  way  of  measuring  suc- 
cess is  by  applying  the  long-time  rule.  Wait  awhile 
before  you  count  that  man  a  success.  Wait  awhile 
before  you  count  this  man  a  failure.  Ten,  twenty, 
fifty,  eighty  years  are  not  long  enough  to  test  the 
results  of  a  life.  See  that  mean  man  go  to  Congress. 
"Yes,  evil  is  successful,"  you  say.  Wait  awhile  until 
you  see  him  drop  out  of  Congress,  out  of  life,  as  if 
he  had  never  been,  and  then  re-read  your  verdict  and 
say:  "No  evil  thing  is  success."  See  that  good  man 
kept  at  home,  defeated,  unknown,  unhonored.  "There 
is  a  good  thing  that  is  a  failure,"  you  say.  See  lov- 
ing tears  dropped  upon  his  coffin,  see  the  white  shaft 
of  respect  that  rises  to  his  memory  in  the  hearts  of 
his  neighbors.  Re-read  your  decision  again  and  say: 
"No  good  thing  is  failure." 

See  that  proud  belle,  who  was  never  gracious  or 
helpful  at  home,  and  whom  nobody  liked  at  school; 
yet  she  had  partners  at  the  dance,  she  was  courted  in 
society,  she  married  well,  her  husband  was  rich  and 
indulgent  toward  her,  her  home  was  elegant,  and  she 
seemed  so  fortunate!  She  may  even  die  happy,  as 
we  see  happiness;  and  still  that  plain  girl  who  plod- 
ded in  school,  drudged  at  home,  and  died  under  a 
burden  of  disappointment  may  be  more  of  a  success 
measured  by  the  long  tests  of  time.  The  little  chil- 
dren taught  by  this  plain  but  loving  girl  will  win  the 
triumphs  she  did  not  reach,  will  be  the  beauty  she 
only  dreamed  of.  The  patience  which  cost  her  pain 
will  bloom  into  smiles  in  some  other  heart. 


lo6  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

History  seems  to  have  great  respect  for  many 
people  whom  their  neighbors  despised,  and  very  Httle 
respect  for  many  people  whom  their  neighbors  called 
successful.  The  universe  seems  to  believe  our  text 
and  practice  it,  however  it  may  be  with  you  and  me. 
The  world  once  called  Napoleon  a  great  success 
because  he  had  conquered  armies  and  acquired 
nations;  but,  in  less  than  a  hundred  years,  history 
begins  to  pronounce  him  the  biggest  failure  of  modern 
times. 

But  suppose  history  sometimes  fails  to  prove  my 
text.  If  the  good  deed  misses  not  only  money  and 
pleasure,  but  misses  also  the  pages  of  history,  if  it 
abides  nowhere  outside,  it  still  stays  inside.  Every 
good  thing  builds  a  little  higher  that  column  in  the 
soul  which  we  call  character.  If  it  does  nothing  else, 
it  puts  you  in  line  with  all  that  is  excellent;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  every  evil  deed  compels  you  to  keep 
company  with  all  that  is  despicable. 

Two  boys  start  out  in  life,  one  saying,  *T  am 
going  to  succeed ;"  while  the  other,  not  daring  to 
dream  of  success,  hopes  for  a  bit  of  usefulness. 
Perhaps  we  should  pronounce  both  their  lives  fail- 
ures. One  misses  the  money,  and  the  other  misses 
the  usefulness  he  planned  for.  But  the  latter  added 
some  goodness  to  the  stock  of  the  world  somewhere, 
while  the  former  introduced  a  minus  quantity  into 
the  equation. 

You  know  how  a  flash  of  light  may  strike  the 
sensitive  plate  in  the  camera  for  a  second,  and  that. 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE  107 

photographic  plate  may  be  put  away  in  the  garret, 
neglected,  forgotten  among  the  rubbish.  Years  after- 
ward, if  that  plate  is  subjected  to  the  proper  chemi- 
cals, the  picture  comes  out  strong  and  clear.  So,  dear 
children,  I  believe  there  is  not  a  "Thank  you,  ma'am" 
or  an  "If  you  please,  sir,"  thrown  out  of  the  kindly 
life  of  a  boy  or  girl  but  falls  upon  some  sensitive  plate 
which  will  one  day  be  developed  into  a  touch  of 
gentleness,  a  bit  of  beauty. 

Evil  cannot  succeed,  because  it  is  linked  to  the 
forces  that  hurt.  Good  cannot  fail,  for  it  is  in  league 
with  what  is  excellent.  The  one  belongs  with  the 
forces  that  help,  the  other  is  allied  to  the  forces  that 
hurt.  In  the  Hindu  scripture  there  is  found  this 
parable : 

Vishnu  asked  Bal  to  take  his  choice, — 

With  five  wise  men  to  visit  hell. 
Or  with  five  ignorant  visit  heaven. 

Then  quick  did  Bal  in  heart  rejoice, 
And  chose  in  hell  with  the  wise  to  dwell : 

For  heaven  is  hell,  with  folly's  bell. 
And  hell  is  heaven,  with  wisdom's  leaven. 

Science  tells  us  that  no  power  is  ever  lost,  and 
that  the  blow  I  now  give  this  table  will  never  stop. 
The  force  is  communicated  from  my  hand  to  the 
atoms  in  the  board,  the  board  transmits  it  to  the  floor, 
and  the  floor  to  the  earth,  and  every  tremor  of  the 
earth  will  eventually  be  felt  in  the  moon,  in  Mars,  in  the 
sun — yes,  throughout  all  space.  So,  my  lad,  the  tune 
you  whistled  yesterday  is  on  its  way  today  to  yonder 
planet  on  the  material  side,  and  on  the  spiritual  side 


Io8  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

it  is  on  its  way  to  the  heart  of  the  infinite  God  who 
is  the  infinite  good.  If  it  was  a  kindly  tune,  nothing 
can  change  its  Httle  note  of  praise.  "No  good  thing 
is  failure!"  Little  girl,  the  unkind  kick  you  gave  the 
cat  yesterday  is  on  its  way  through  the  realms  of 
cruelty.  It  was  one  little  feather-stroke  added  to  the 
force  of  unkindness,  the  bulk  of  which  makes  human- 
ity groan  today,  and  no  time  or  distance  will  make  a 
kindness  out  of  that  blow.  You  cannot  change  a  fell 
force  into  a  loving  energy.     Says  Longfellow : 

I  shot  an  arrow  into  the  air, 
It  fell  to  earth,  I  knew  not  where; 
For,  so  swiftly  it  flew,  the  sight 
Could  not   follow  it  in  its  flight. 

I  breathed  a  song  into  the  air, 
It  fell  to  earth,  I  knew  not  where ; 
For  who  has  sight  so  keen  and  strong, 
That  it  can  follow  the  flight  of  song? 

Long,  long  afterward  in  an  oak 
I  found  the  arrow,  still  unbroke; 
And  the  song,   from  beginning  to  end, 
I  found  again  in  the  heart  of  a  friend. 

Yes,  both  the  arrow  and  the  song  strike  somewhere. 
May  we  not  then  believe  that  "no  good  thing  is 
failure,"  because,  first,  history  seems  to  prove  that 
in  the  long  run  "the  right  comes  uppermost  and 
ever  is  justice  done?"  There  is  a  power  that  defeats 
the  tyrant  who  rides  his  horse  with  iron  shoes  over 
the  writhing  bodies  of  his  subjects,  a  power  that 
reverses  the  judgment  of  every  iniquitous  court,  ren-. 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE  109 

ders  worthless  the  coin  of  unrighteous  governments, 
and  brings  to  hght  the  hidden  mischief  and  the  sly 
intrigues  of  a  mean  man.  This  is  proved  so  often 
that  I  have  faith  to  believe  it  is  true  in  cases  where 
the  evidence  does  not  appear. 

Secondly,  may  we  not  believe  that  "no  good  thing 
is  failure"  because  it  stays  at  home  to  bless,  if  it 
blesses  nowhere  else.  George  Eliot  has  left  us  a  pretty 
story  in  verse  about  good  old  "Agatha,"  a  pure-minded 
Catholic  peasant,  a  maiden  grandmother  living 
in  an  Alpine  hut.  She  prays  for  young  Hans  gone 
soldiering,  because  the  prayer  "eases  her  own  soul  if 
it  goes  nowhere  else."  So  the  good  deed,  the  good 
thought,  is  a  success  if  it  does  nothing  and  goes 
nowhere  other  than  to  help  build  the  beautiful  white 
column  of  character  in  the  soul  itself. 

Nothing  is  failure  that  makes  for  character; 
nothing  is  success  that  hurts  it.  Millions  cannot  buy 
the  benediction  that  lurks  in  the  loving  impulse  of  the 
poorest  laborer  who  believes  in  justice  and  tries  to 
live  up  to  his  belief. 

But,  in  the  third  place  and  chiefly,  we  may  believe 
that  "no  good  thing  is  failure,"  because  we  believe  that 
God  is,  now,  here,  everywhere,  taking  account  of  things 
said  and  done,  posting  the  books  every  day  and  every 
hour  in  the  day.  To  think  that  evil  brings  success  in 
any  true  and  high  sense  is  to  believe  that  there  is  no 
law  and  that  the  universe  is  not  dealing  fairly  with 
us.  I  believe  in  this  motto  in  the  same  way  and  for 
the    same  reason   that    I    believe    in    next    summer's 


no  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

strawberries.  I  would  have  you  trust  it  as  you  will 
trust  your  flower-seeds  in  the  ground  next  May.  I 
do  not  see  the  June  strawberries  yet;  I  cannot  prove 
to  you  that  your  seed  will  grow;  but  I  know  that  the 
sun  shines  today  in  accordance  with  a  law  that  will 
cause  it  to  shine  stronger  in  June.  I  know  the  straw- 
berries ripen  when  the  sun  is  hot  enough,  and  you  feel 
that  flowers  reward  wise  seed-sowing. 

I  said  at  the  outset  that  honesty  is  not  always 
rewarded  with  prosperity,  and  that  success  sometimes 
follows  the  trickster  in  trade.  But  it  will  not  always 
be  so;  indeed,  it  is  less  so  now  than  it  used  to  be. 
Every  year  it  is  getting  harder  and  harder  for  a  mean 
man  even  to  make  money  and  keep  it.  Slowly  the 
country  is  learning  to  distrust  the  demagogue;  and 
the  day  is  coming  when  men  will  so  understand  the 
laws  of  the  universe  that  they  will  respect  them,  and 
then  they  will  act  as  God  does  toward  evil.  Every 
man  who  cheats  is  like  the  baby  who  plays  with  the 
candle,  and  he  will  get  his  fingers  burned  if  he  does 
not  look  out. 

In  the  latter  half  of  the  seventeenth  century  there 
lived  in  a  little  town  in  northern  Italy  a  quaint  maker 
of  violins.  He  was  never  seen  without  his  leathern 
apron.  Year  after  year  he  brooded  upon  the  myster- 
ies of  his  craft.  Everything  that  entered  into  his  art 
he  dwelt  upon  with  loving  care.  All  the  woods  of 
the  Swiss  mountains  he  tried ;  the  intestines  of  all  the 
animals  he  stretched  for  strings ;  the  quality  of  hairs 
found  in  different  horses'  manes  and  tails  he  tried; 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE  HI 

the  number  of  hairs  which  it  was  fitting  to  put  into 
the  bow  he  counted  and  experimented  with.  Every 
httle  piece  of  wood  that  entered  into  the  interior  he 
measured,  weighed,  and  pohshed;  until  at  last  he 
lifted  his  humble  craft  to  the  dignity  of  a  fine  art, 
and  a  Stradivarius  violin  became  as  much  sought 
after,  and  brought  almost  as  much  money,  as  a  paint- 
ing of  Raphael's.  Content  and  diligent  he  toiled, 
making  his  last  violin  at  ninety-two  years  of  age,  sus- 
tained in  all  this  diligence,  not  by  the  hope  of  fame, 
or  pay,  or  success,  but  simply  by  the  thought  of 
making  a  perfect  violin,  that  when  the  great  masters 
came  he  might  give  them  great  instruments  to  play 
upon.  He  toiled  with  the  simple  thought  that  God 
had  chosen  him  to  help  him.  For  him  to  stop  his 
work  would  be  to  rob  God,  George  Eliot  has  given 
us  his  labor  song: 

My  work  is  mine, 
And,  heresy  or  not,  if  my  hand  slacked, 
I  should  rob  God — since  He  is  fullest  good — 
Leaving    a    blank    instead    of    violins. 
I  say  not  God  Himself  can  make  man's  best 
Without  best  men  to  help  Him.     I  am  one  best 
Here   in   Cremona,  using  sunlight  v^^ell 
To  fashion  finest  maple  till  it  serves 
More   cunningly   than    throats,    for    harmony. 
'Tis  rare  delight :  I  would  not  change  my  skill 
To  be  the   Emperor  with  bungling  hands, 
And  lose  my  work,  which  comes  as  natural 
As  self  at  waking. 


112  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

'Tis  God  gives  skill, 
But  not  without  men's  hands :  He  could  not  make 
Antonio   Stradivari's   violins 
Without  Antonio. 

At  last  the  hand  and  brain  that  "without  haste 
and  also  without  rest  labored  for  the  production  of 
the  violin"  ceased,  and  the  world  was  greedy  for 
violins  attuned  to  the  ear  of  Stradivarius.  Many 
lesser  workmen  hastened  to  palm  off  upon  the  market 
their  imitations,  and  some  of  them  caught  well  many 
of  the  secrets  of  Antonio's  art.  They  could  imitate 
the  shape,  color,  and  even  the  tone,  so  that  experts 
could  not  distinguish.  But  at  last  there  came  an  exi- 
gency in  the  life  of  these  instruments  such  as  seems 
to  have  come  into  the  life  of  all  the  older  violins. 
As  they  increased  in  resonance,  rising  in  pitch,  neces- 
sitating an  added  tension  of  the  strings,  the  inside 
post  supporting  the  bridge  proved  too  weak,  and  the 
violins  had  to  be  opened  and  a  stronger  post  put  in. 
And  behold,  when  these  fiddles  were  opened  the  fraud 
became  apparent,  for  the  inner  pieces — the  little 
blocks,  ribs,  and  slips  of  wood — showed  a  hasty  work- 
man, a  careless  hand,  a  callous  conscience.  Here 
were  lumps  of  glue,  and  scratched  and  unpolished 
surfaces,  where  the  master  left  none  such. 

Let  us  too  become  artists  like  Stradivarius,  the 
fiddle-maker,  who  believed  so  much  that 

No    good    thing   is    failure, 
No  evil  thing  success, 

that  he  was  content  with  nothing  less  than  excellence. 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE  113 

and  aimed  ever  at  the  perfection  which  left  no 
scratched  blocks  on  the  inside.  Like  old  Antonio  of 
Cremona,  let  us  lend  ourselves  out  to  God,  make  "in- 
struments for  masters  to  play  upon,"  and  let  us 
"wince  at  false  work  and  love  the  truth,"  even  though 
it  be  apparent  failure,  aye,  though  no  God  is  there  to 
watch  it. 

You  know  what  Longfellow  says  of  the  old  Greek 
builders,  who 

Wrought    with    greatest    care 
Each  minute  and  unseen  part; 
For  the  gods  see  everywhere. 

Let  us  do  our  work  as  well, 
Both  the  unseen  and  the  seen; 

Make  the  house  where  gods  may  dwell, 
Beautiful,  entire,  and  clean. 

I  like  the  piety  of  those  artists  who  wrought  well 
the  hidden  parts  because  "the  gods  see  everywhere;" 
but  I  like  still  better  the  religion  of  the  faithful  Welsh 
stone-mason  I  know  up  in  Wisconsin,  who,  when 
urged  to  toss  off  a  piece  of  work  roughly  because  the 
building  would  hide  it  and  no  one  would  know  how  it 
looked,  replied,  "Ah,  but  I  would  know  it!"  and  so 
finished  the  inside  pillar  with  the  deliberation  and 
nicety  of  the  loving  craftsman. 

This  is  the  last  and  highest  piety  which  will  not 
desecrate  the  sanctities  of  right  and  beauty  as  revealed 
to  one's  own  soul.  Be  your  own  divine  authority;  let 
the  voice  of  the  infinite  God  find  itself  in  your  voice, 
if  nowhere  else  in  all  the  universe;  let  the  spirit  of 


114  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

eternal  beauty  work  through  your  hands,  if  nowhere 
else;  let  heavenly  love  abide  in  your  hearts,  even  if  all 
the  rest  of  the  universe  is  cruel.  Be  you  just,  though 
injustice  reigns  supreme. 

So,  dear  children,  if  our  walks  together  through 
the  religious  gardens  of  the  world,  our  attempts  to 
study,  boy  and  girl  fashion,  the  meaning  of  religion, 
have  brought  us  what  I  hoped  they  would,  the  lesson 
bids  us  do  the  good  and  shun  the  evil,  not  because  it 
will  bring  health,  wealth,  or  fame,  not  because  this 
will  bring  peace,  joy,  or  heaven,  but  because  it  is 
right,  and  our  souls  long  for  it,  because  we  want  to 
add  to  the  stock  of  good  in  the  world,  to  make  melody 
where  there  is  now  discord,  beauty  where  there  is 
now  blemish.  If  this  quest  shall  bring  with  it  a 
measure  of  power  and  a  degree  of  plenty,  we  shall  be 
glad,  take  heart,  and  strive  the  harder.  But  if  pov- 
erty, weakness,  pain,  neglect,  must  come,  as  they  have 
often  come  to  our  betters,  still  let  us  try  to  live  as  if 
we  believed  our  text: 

However  things  may  seem, 
No  good  thing  is  failure, 
No  evil  thing  success. 


LIFE'S  COMMISSION 


GOOD    SHALL    CONQUER,   NEVER   FEAR 

Be  we  the  courage-bringers ! 
Let  laugh  the  bells,  O  ringers! 
Earth's   hero-hearts  and  singers 

Promise  peace. 
Despair  and  grief  why  borrow? 
The  world  needs  joy,  not  sorrow; 
Work  gladly  for  the  morrow, — 

Wrong  shall  cease. 

Chorus: 

Never  fear!       Light  is  growing! 
Never  fear!      Truth  is  flowing 
Where   humanity  shall  share   it, — 
Never  fear! 
Never  fear!     Clouds  are  fleeing; 
Never  fear!    Men  are  seeing 
That  the  good  at  last  shall  conquer, — 
Never  fear! 

With  hope  and  high  endeavor 
Earth's  saints  have  striven  ever 
The  bonds  of  ill  to  sever, — 

We  may  trust! 
The   might   of  Jesus'  preaching. 
The  Prince   of  India's   teaching, 
All  Plato's  forzvard  reaching — 

Win  they  must! 

Man   is  still   onzvard  striving, 
All  happy  Art  is   thriving, 
The  Age  of  Good  arriving, — 

Give  it  scope! 
The  heights  of  being  call  us; 
If  doubt  nor  fear  appall  us 
Life's  splendor  shall  befall  us, — 

Work   and   hope. 

James  H.  West 


VII 
LIFE'S  commission" 

On  bravely  through  the  sunshine  and  the  showers. 
Time  hath  his  work  to  do,  and  we  have  ours. 

— Emerson 

How  much  Time  does,  and  how  well  he  does  it! 
Have  you  ever  tried  to  catch  him  at  his  work,  ever 
looked  with  curious  eyes  into  h's  record?  Once  all 
the  fields  of  space  from  the  sun  to  Neptune  were 
filled  with  fiery  mist,  and  Time  rolled  this  mist  into 
glowing  balls,  cooled  them  into  solid  planets,  gathered 
the  waters  together,  and  built  the  dry  land.  Time 
wore  away  the  flinty  spires,  filed  down  the  granite 
heights,  and,  with  the  aid  of  the  sea  and  the  rain,  the 
frosts  and  the  snow,  laid  the  rocks  in  layers  and 
wrote  the  history  of  the  world  in  leaves  of  stone. 
And  all  this  was  done,  in  the  main,  quietly,  and  as 
slowly  as  the  wearing-away  of  the  rock  by  the  rain- 
drops or  the  formation  of  the  sandy  beach  by  the 
ocean. 

After  the  world  was  rounded,  washed,  and 
plowed,  Time  began  to  make  his  garden,  and  little  by 
little,  from  the  simplest  fern  and  moss,  grasses, 
flowers,  and  splendid  forests  came  to  be.  Alongside 
of  this  luxuriant  vegetation,  and  dependent  upon  it, 
grew  animal  life.  First  came  the  tiniest  cells,  the 
simple  life-sacks  that  rose  through  jelly-fish,  oyster, 
reptile,  bird,  and  mammal,  up  to  man.     Forests  grew, 

"7 


ii8  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

decayed,  and  were  submerged  and  compressed  into 
coal-beds.  These  coal-beds  were  raised  again  into 
the  sunlight  by  the  slow  bulging  motion  of  the  earth's 
crust,  and  again  became  dry  land  on  which  other 
forests  grew.  These  were  in  turn  submerged,  mak- 
ing another  layer  of  coal;  three,  four,  five,  six,  ten, 
and  more  times  in  some  places,  did  this  globe  raise  its 
broad  shoulder  into  the  sunlight  long  enough  to 
grow  great  forests  of  fern  trees,  and  then  sink  back 
under  its  watery  ooze,  making  each  time  a  bed  of 
coal — condensed  sunlight,  preserved  fuel — ready  for 
man's  use  when  he  should  arrive  to  need  it,  and 
covering  that  with  fresh  soil  in  order  to  grow  another 
garden  of  trees. 

And  what  has  Time  done  with  and  for  man  since 
he  came?  We  are  told  how  man  began — so  little 
above  the  brute;  naked,  savage,  and  ignorant;  with- 
out a  home;  without  coat,  hat,  or  gun;  without 
government,  family,  or  tribe;  and  with  few  words  to 
express  his  few  thoughts.  But  Time  was  patient 
with  him.  Time,  the  diligent  schoolmaster,  taught 
him,  until  very  slowly  there  came  to  his  aid  the  dog, 
the  loom,  the  bow  and  arrow,  the  gun,  and  finally  the 
printing-press,  the  steam-engine,  the  telegraph,  and 
the  telephone.  How  long  it  took  to  make  a  block  of 
granite!  How  long  it  took,  again,  to  teach  man  how 
to  split  that  block  from  its  lodgment  in  the  breast  of 
the  mountain ;  to  shape  it  and  build  it  into  a  cathedral, 
and  to  place  within  it  that  other  block  of  stone  from 
the   breast   of   another   mountain,   the   white   marble 


LIFE'S  COMMISSION  119 

which  Michael  Angelo  shaped  into  the  great  statue  of 
Moses ! 

All  this  Time  has  done  and  is  doing;  and  Time  is 
one  way  we  have  of  naming  that  eternal  power  we 
find  everywhere,  always  working,  never  resting,  never 
hasting,  always  pushing,  always  leading  things  and 
beings  on  those  outgrowing,  upreaching,  improving, 
and  opening  lines  which  we  sometimes  call 
Progress,  sometimes  Evolution,  and  sometimes  Provi- 
dence. Sometimes  we  call  this  eternal  power  Law 
and  Order;  and  again,  at  other  times,  when  we  dimly 
feel  that  the  power  which  molded  the  planets,  smoothed 
out  the  valleys,  planted  the  oaks,  and  caused  the 
whale  to  swim  in  the  sea,  the  eagle  to  fly  in  the  air, 
and  the  horse  to  gallop  over  the  plains,  is  the  same 
power  that  makes  us  love  the  baby,  that  teaches  us  to 
think  some  things  right  and  other  things  wrong,  and 
makes  us  glad  when  we  do  the  one  and  sad  when  we 
do  the  other — then  we  call  it  God.  And  all  the 
while  we  are  meaning  the  same  thing;  only  we 
approach  it  in  a  different  way  and  touch  it  with  a 
different  part  of  our  nature.  Time,  that  works 
through  sunshine  and  shower;  Law,  that  binds  all  in 
sunshine  and  shower,  are  but  half-way  names  for 
that  which  the  Hindu  calls  Brahm,  the  Arabian  Allah, 
the  Parsee  Ahura-Mazda,  and  we  call  God.  And  all 
of  them,  like  ourselves,  feel  at  times  how  poor  are 
words,  when  applied  to  something  so  much  better  and 
bigger  than  all  our  words ;  and  again,  sometimes  they 
— and  we  too,  alas ! — mistake  the  word  for  the  thing, 


I20  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

and  imagine  that  when  we  have  the  word  we  have 
found  all  there  is.  But  we  will  try  to  remember  that 
the  work  of  Time  is  being  done  "through  sunshine 
and  through  shower,"  not  only  in  the  rock  and  at 
the  bottom  of  the  sea,  but  in  the  heart  of  man,  in  the 
minds  of  boys  and  girls,  in  the  soul  that  sits  on  a 
throne,  that  pilots  the  ship  or  rocks  the  cradle.  We 
will  also  try  to  remember  that  the  power  that  made 
the  rocks  is  akin  to  that  which  speaks  in  conscience; 
that  that  which  once  created  the  forest  and  taught 
the  earliest  bird  to  fly  is  now  making  character  and 
teaching  men  and  women  to  love  and  do  the  right; 
or,  as  we  find  it  in  the  great  poem  of  the  author  from 
whom  we  took  our  text: 

Out  from  the  heart  of  nature  rolled 
The  burdens  of  the  Bible  old; 
The  litanies  of  nations  came, 
Like  the  volcano's  tongue  of  flame, 
Up    from   the   burning  core   below, — 
The  canticles  of  love  and  woe. 

Now  let  us  look  at  the  last  thought  in  our  couplet, 
which  I  suspect  is  the  thought  that  won  you :  not  only 
has  Time  his  work  to  do,  but  we  have  ours.  The  sun 
attends  to  his  own  business,  not  to  yours  or  mine, 
and  every  one  of  us  has  some  little  work  of  his  own 
in  this  world  whose  importance  must  not  be  measured 
by  its  apparent  size.  One  of  the  smallest  of  living 
things  that  we  can  study  with  the  naked  eye  is  the 
little  coral  creature  which  lives  in  the  bottom  of  the 
sea.      So  insignificant   is   he  that  it   has  taken  us  a- 


LIFE'S  COMMISSION  I2i 

long  time  to  find  out  how  he  works,  and  yet  by  quietly 
attending  to  his  business,  he  has  built  up  for  us  great 
islands.  Most  of  the  oranges  we  delight  in  are  raised 
in  Florida,  and  Florida  was  built  by  the  little  coral 
animal.  And  he  is  still  busy  at  work  on  the  outer  rim, 
building  the  bulwark  that  keeps  the  waves  from  tear- 
ing up  and  carting  away  our  orange  gardens. 

And  so  we  come  to  the  thought  that  we  have  a 
work  to  do  just  as  much  as  Time  has.  The  sun  did 
not  build  the  Parthenon.  Time  could  never  have 
carved  the  splendid  frieze  on  that  glorious  temple, 
if  Phidias  had  not  lent  him  a  hand.  The  political 
geography  of  the  world  is  as  interesting,  to  say  the 
least,  as  the  physical  geography.  Time  made  fertile 
the  valley  of  the  Nile,  and  built  it  up  at  a  rate  of 
about  five  inches  of  soil  in  a  hundred  years ;  but  it  was 
Rameses  that  built  the  great  pyramids,  and  some 
mighty  Pharaoh  built  the  walls  of  Thebes  and 
caused  the  great  halls  of  Karnak  to  rise.  Perhaps 
Alexandria  is  the  most  interesting  thing  in  the  valley 
of  the  Nile  today,  and  it  was  built,  not  by  Time,  but 
by  the  great,  though  often  wicked,  conqueror,  the 
mighty  Alexander. 

Have  you  ever  heard  the  story  of  Giordano  Bruno, 
the  brave  Italian  student  who,  after  languishing  seven 
years  in  prison  under  the  charge  of  heresy,  walked 
with  steady  step  to  his  place  amid  the  fagots?  He 
was  burned  to  death,  and  it  would  seem  that,  if  any- 
one ever  lived  in  vain,  it  was  Giordano  Bruno.  The 
world  almost  forgot  him.     But  four  hundred  years 


122  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

after  the  smoke  enveloped  him,  the  free  people  of 
Italy  with  song  and  cheer  and  waving  banners 
unveiled  a  bronze  statue  on  the  very  spot  where  the 
martyr  fires  consumed  him,  in  sight  of  the  Pope's 
chamber  in  the  Vatican. 

When  John  Howard  went  from  capital  to  capital 
in  Europe,  compelling  kings  and  parliaments  to  see 
how  cruel  were  their  prison  systems;  when  Dorothea 
Dix  went  from  state  legislature  to  state  legislature, 
pleading  for  insane  asylums  and  better  treatment  for 
the  unfortunate,  they  were  helping  God,  they  were 
piecing  out  Providence,  they  were  doing  their  work  as 
Time  was  doing  his.  And  so  it  was  with  Moses  and 
Confucius,  Zoroaster  and  Mohammed,  Buddha  and 
Jesus.  They  had  a  work  to  do,  and  they  did  it.  And 
the  grateful  world  honors  them  today  with  song  and 
temple,  procession  and  ritual. 

You  must  not  be  discouraged,  children,  by  these 
illustrations  of  great  men.  You  may  be  tempted  to 
say:  "They,  the  noble,  did  have  work  to  do;  but 
that  does  not  imply  that  we  stupid  and  silly  little  chil- 
dren can  do  anything  that  will  help  God.  We  cannot 
piece  out  Providence  and  make  the  world  better."  The 
little  shepherd  dog  of  Colorado,  who  left  her  warm 
nest  and  dependent  family  of  little  pups  and  went  out 
into  the  tangles  and  mountain  gorges,  hunting  all 
night  for  the  lost  sheep  and  bringing  them  back  in 
the  morning,  did  not  think  in  this  way.  The  faithful 
horse  that  I  saw  the  other  day  did  not  think  thus.  He 
put  his  sore  shoulder  to  the  pinching  collar  and  tugged- 


LIFE'S  COMMISSION  123 

away  at  the  load  of  flour  until  he  fell  upon  the  stony 
pavement.  He  then  got  up  and  struggled  some  more, 
fell  again,  and  tried  the  third  time,  in  a.,  way  that  only 
infuriated  still  further  the  swearing  and  whipping 
driver.  At  last  he  succeeded  in  getting  a  firm  foot- 
ing and  went  on  with  his  load  of  flour,  which  ere  this 
has  been  made  into  toothsome  biscuits  for  some  boys 
and  girls  to  devour  in  what  I  fear  may  be  thoughtless 
ingratitude.  He  had  his  work  to  do.  Certainly, 
then,  you  have  yours. 

I  like  to  tell  the  story  of  "Bunny,"  a  drummer 
boy  that  I  knew  in  the  army.  He  was  the  smallest 
bunch  of  a  drummer  boy  I  ever  saw — a  little  stubby 
German,  not  more  than  twelve  years  old,  the  son  of  a 
St.  Louis  washerwoman.  When  his  brigade  made  a 
forced  march  to  Memphis,  through  nearly  a  hundred 
miles  of  December  slush  and  mud,  in  order  to  bring 
supplies  to  the  starving  army  cut  off  by  the  surrender 
of  Holly  Springs,  they  reached  Memphis  during  the 
Christmas  days  of  1862.  They  were  hungry,  poorly 
clad,  and  had  been  a  long  time  without  pay.  Here 
they  found  the  troops  well  fed,  clothed,  and  comfort- 
able, as  it  seemed  to  them;  and  when,  the  very  next 
morning  after  their  arrival,  they  were  ordered  to 
turn  around  and  escort  the  provision  train  back  to 
their  hungry  comrades  in  the  interior,  they  rebelled. 
They  said:  "It  isn't  fair.  Let  the  other  soldiers  go 
while  we  rest.  We  must  have  clothing  and  pay 
before  we  leave."  And  so,  when  the  order  was  given 
to  fall  in,  nobody  moved,  the  brigade  band  would  not 


124  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

turn  out;  the  drum  major  would  not  call  out  his 
fifers  and  drummers,  and  they  would  not  have  moved 
if  he  had. 

The  officers  went  up  and  down  the  line,  expostu- 
lating with  the  men;  but  nobody  moved  until  "Bun- 
ny," the  wee  mite  of  a  drummer,  seized  his  drum, 
took  his  place  at  the  head  where  the  line  ought  to 
form,  and  began  beating  the  long  roll;  and  how 
the  little  dirty  hands  made  the  snare  drum  rattle! 
At  first  the  men  jeered,  then  they  laughed,  then  they 
began  to  grow  silent  and  ashamed,  and  one  by  one 
they  seized  their  muskets  and  sneaked  into  line;  and 
still  "Bunny's"  drum  rolled.  After  a  few  minutes  a 
big  wheezy  fifer,  who  had  substance  enough  to  cut  up 
into  three  or  four  "Bunny's,"  waddled  out  with  his 
fife  and  joined  in  with  the  drum.  Then  there  was  a 
cheer,  a  rush  for  the  ranks,  and  in  less  than  half  an 
hour  the  tattered  regiments  and  the  two  pieces  of 
artillery  were  moving  out  with  quick  and  elastic  step 
with  wagon-loads  of  hard-tack  for  the  hungry  boys 
sixty  miles  away. 

Some  time  in  the  afternoon,  as  the  column  was 
picking  its  way  through  the  mud  and  rain  in  a 
dismal  Mississippi  swamp,  with  the  boys  going  "at 
will,"  I  noticed  "Bunny"  plodding  along  a  mile  or 
more  behind  his  regiment  with  a  limp  in  his  foot.  I 
put  the  boy  and  the  drum  on  the  horse  which  it  was 
my  business  to  ride,  and  I  tried  to  get  him  to  talk ;  but 
his  was  the  silent  doggedness  of  his  Teutonic  race.  All 
he  would  say  was:     "I  schvore  I  vould  help  United 


LIFE'S  COMMISSION  125 

States  ven  I  enlisted,  and  I'm  shust  goin'  to  do't."  In 
the  war  reports  of  that  campaign  you  will  read  of  the 
exploits  of  major  generals,  brigadiers,  colonels,  and 
perhaps  a  few  captains,  but  you  will  never  find  a 
word  about  "Bunny;"  and  still  who  will  say  that  the 
rattle  of  his  little  drum  was  not  the  most  valuable 
as  well  as  the  most  heroic  contribution  made  by  the 
Western  army  to  the  cause  of  liberty  that  week? 

Once  along  the  lagoons  of  Louisiana,  under  the 
gray  festoons  of  Spanish  moss  that  hung  from  the 
cypress  bough,  and  once  in  the  awful  dust  and  heat 
of  a  forced  march  in  the  rear  of  Vicksburg,  when  the 
troops  were  hurrying  into  line  of  battle,  I  saw 
"Bunny"  limping  along  as  usual  behind  his  regiment, 
with  his  drum  on  his  shoulder.  And  then  he  disap- 
peared. Did  his  bad  ankle  grow  worse,  and  did  he 
go  home,  as  the  adjutant  advised  on  the  day  of  the 
mutiny  at  Memphis ;  or  did  he  lie  down  one  day  at  the 
root  of  a  tree,  unable  to  go  farther,  and  was  his  little 
body  laid  away  in  a  wee,  small  soldier's  grave?  I 
never  knew.  He  was  not  of  sufficient  importance  to 
have  a  name  other  than  "Bunny,"  so  far  as  I  could 
ever  learn;  but  still  he,  and  not  the  general  with  gold 
lace,  brass  buttons,  and  silver  stars  on  his  shoulder, 
represents  the  little  work  that  most  of  us  have  to  do 
in  life.  And  we  do  it,  children,  by  plodding  along, 
though  we  may  never  reach  the  goal. 

We  do  not  know  what  is  big  or  what  is  small. 
.We  do  know  that  what  we  call  results  are  oftentimes 


126  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

very  deceptive.     And  never,  I  suspect,   do  we  know 
the  measure  of  worth  as  estimated  by  God. 

The  private  soldier  walks  his  solemn  beat  at  mid- 
night in  lonely  self -depreciation.  If  the  silent  bullet 
finds  him  out,  it  will  not  make  any  apparent  difference. 
If  he  survives,  the  result  will  be  the  same  to  all 
appearances.  Yet,  because  he  walked  his  silent  beat 
the  general  slept  the  more  soundly  and  his  brain  was 
the  clearer  for  the  morrow's  action.  And,  though  he 
was  only  a  private,  and  his  life  went  out  in  obscurity, 
he  was  one  of  the  hundred  thousand  whose  bodies 
formed  the  bridge  over  which  the  emancipated  mil- 
lions passed  out  of  bondage  into  freedom,  singing 
jubilee  songs. 

Only  a  private — and  who  will  care 

When  I  may  pass  away, 
Or  how,  or  why  I  perish,  or  where 

I  mix  with  the  common  clay? 
They  will  fill  my  empty  place  again 

With  another  as  bold  and  brave ; 
And  they'll  blot  me  out  ere  the  autumn  rain 

Has  freshened  my  nameless  grave. 

Only  a  private — it  matters  not 

That  I  did  my  duty  well, 
That  all  through  a  score  of  battles  I  fought, 

And  then,  like  a  soldier,  fell. 
The  country  I  died  for  never  will  heed 

My  unrequited  claim ; 
And  history  cannot   record   the  deed, 

For  she  never  has  heard  my  name. 

Only  a  private,  and  yet  I  know 
When  I  heard  the  rallying  call 


LIFE'S  COMMISSION  127 

I  was  one  of  the  very  first  to  go, 
And — I'm  one  of  the  many  who  fall : 

But  as  here  I  lie,  it  is  sweet  to  feel 
That  my  honor's  without  a  stain, — 

That  I  only  fought  for  my  country's  weal, 
And  not  for  glory  or  gain. 

Only  a  private — yet  he  who  reads 

Through  the  guises  of  the  heart. 
Looks  not  at  the  splendor  of  the  deeds 

But  the  way  we  do  our  part ; 
And  when  he  shall  take  us  by  the  hand, 

And  our  small  service  own, 
There'll  a  glorious  band  of  privates  stand 

As  victors  around  the  throne ! 

Four  children  went  out  one  day  to  gather  flowers 
for  the  king.  The  mountain-side  was  gorgeous  with 
the  yellow  blossoms  of  the  broom  and  the  pink  of  the 
heather.  One  climbed  the  rugged  sides,  and  succeeded 
in  gathering  a  bouquet  from  the  hardy  shrubs  which 
were  more  beautiful  in  the  distance  than  close  at 
hand.  The  second  sought  low,  and  picked  a  nosegay 
of  the  daisies  and  violets  that  grew  in  the  grass  at  the 
foot  of  the  mountain.  The  third  sought  diligently,  but 
his  little  feet  were  weak,  and  the  little  hands  could 
not  hold  the  blossoms  he  plucked.  The  fourth  said : 
"I  cannot  scale  the  crags,  I  cannot  reach  the  broom, 
and  I  will  not  insult  my  king  with  a  meaner  offering." 
This  one  alone  displeased  the  king.  The  empty 
hands,  though  torn,  were  welcome,  and  the  daisies 
were  beautiful  as  well  as  the  broom.  We  are  meas- 
ured by  what  we  are  rather  than  by  what  we  bring. 


128  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

What  you  are  aiming  at,  little  one,  not  what  you 
accomplish,  determines  your  service  to  man. 

I  would  not  dissuade  you  from  high  enterprise. 
Strive  for  large  things;  but  never  forget  that  the 
striving  is  larger  than  the  thing  you  strive  for.  "You 
can  not  rivet  a  nail  in  a  boiled  potato,"  says  a  Japa- 
nese proverb.  You  cannot  do  high  work  with  a  low 
purpose.  You  must  not  expect  to  do  good  with  a 
selfish  intent.  "He  that  takes  a  raven  for  his  guide 
shall  light  upon  carrion,"  said  the  Persian 
poet.  This  is  true  all  the  world  around.  There  can 
be  no  exception  in  your  favor  or  mine.  Nobility 
comes  only  to  the  noble.  Never  mind  what  folks 
think,  or  say,  or  do;  you  try  to  do  your  work,  not 
theirs.  You  attend  to  your  own  business,  not  any- 
body's else.  It  is  not  your  business  to  succeed.  It  is 
your  business  to  live  worthy  success.  Said  Henry 
Thoreau:  "Be  not  simply  good,  but  be  good  for 
something."  In  order  to  accomplish  this,  little  chil- 
dren, you  must  "lay  the  face  low  on  the  threshold  of 
truth,"  as  a  Persian  proverb  says. 

I  cannot  tell  you  what  your  work  is  to  be.  How 
can  I?  You  yourself  do  not  yet  know.  Perhaps  you 
never  will  know.  Why  should  you?  But  I  can  tell 
you  that  the  only  work  that  will  tell  in  character,  the 
only  way  you  can  help  time  and  co-operate  with 
God,  is  to  enlist  for  the  war,  as  "Bunny"  did.  Put 
yourself  in  the  line  whether  the  rest  c'.^  ^r  not.  Do 
you  beat  your  drum  though  you  are  hungry  and  cold. 
Be  simple  and  direct,  like  the  sunlight.     Be  persist- 


LIFE'S  COMMISSION  129 

ent  as  gravitation;  be  as  honest  as  the  daylight,  as 
earnest  as  nature,  and  reverent  as  befits  one  who 
every  night  may  look  up  into  the  stars  and  send  his 
mind  up  where  the  planets  are. 

Yes,  one  thing  more.  If  you  have  a  work  to  do, 
use  the  tools  that  nature  has  given  you.  Become 
skilled  workmen  in  the  shop  God  has  provided  you. 
Would  you  find  truth?  You  have  reason,  a  little 
experience,  a  few  insights  which  have  come  to  you 
from  all  of  your  forerunners,  like  the  color  of  your 
eyes  and  the  texture  of  your  hair.  Do  you  want  to 
be  loved?  Set  your  own  heart  at  work.  Meet  the 
world  with  a  smile.  Greet  every  day  with  a  kiss. 
Would  you  know  the  right,  do  it.  And,  still  further, 
if  you  would  do  your  work  in  the  world,  you  must 
take  care  of  your  body  that  has  been  matured  to  you 
by  all  the  processes  of  life,  and  is  without  doubt  the 
most  wonderful,  beautiful,  and  complicated  machinery 
that  is  known  to  the  human  mind.  Use  the  body 
and  do  not  abuse  it.  Learn  to  go  to  sleep  when  you 
ought,  if  you  would  wake  up  as  you  ought.  He  who 
abuses  his  stomach  insults  his  God  and  is  guilty  of  an 
act  of  irreverence.  The  young  person  who  brings  on 
dyspepsia  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  himself.  Every 
time  you  are  sick  it  is  certain  that  somebody  has 
sinned,  and  it  very  likely  is  yourself.  Would  you  be 
beautiful,  let  good  habits  be  your  complexion- 
maker.  Good  air,  fresh  water,  plenty  of  them,  will 
paint  your  cheeks  so  that  the  color  will  not  rub  ofif. 
If  you  have  a  work  to  do,  no  matter  what,  keep  your 


130  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

tools  in  order.  Let  there  be  no  tampering  with  any 
of  these  splendid  instruments  that  Time,  God's  great 
exponent,  has  been  so  long  in  fitting  to  your  need. 
Keep  the  corns  off  your  toes  and  jealousy  out  of  your 
heart.  Avoid  tight  shoes,  tight  lacing,  and  mean 
thoughts.  Breathe  deeply  of  truth,  as  of  pure  air. 
And  then  your  work  will  be  God's  work,  and  you  will 
accomplish  it,  whether  it  be  making  horseshoes  or 
chiming  rhymes,  making  bread  or  making  laws. 

On  bravely  through  the  sunshine  and  the  showers ; 

Time  hath  his  work  to  do  and  we  have  ours, — 

our  own  work,  not  somebody's  else. 

Let  us  beware  of  the  temptation  to  attend  to  our 
neighbor's  garden  patch  more  than  to  our  own.  I 
heard  a  young  woman  scolding  the  other  day  about 
the  sparrows,  "those  murderous  English  sparrows  that 
drive  away  our  robins,"  while  at  that  very  minute 
there  was  a  robin's  wing  on  her  own  hat. 

I  once  heard,  in  a  colored  women's  prayer-meet- 
ing away  down  in  Florida,  an  "old  mammy"  wrestle 
with  the  Lord  in  prayer.  Judging  from  information 
derived  from  the  prayer,  she  was  a  hard-working 
washerwoman,  oftentimes  neglectful  of  her  duties 
and  unappreciative  of  her  privileges.  But  slowly  she 
rose  on  the  ladder  of  confession  to  great  confidences 
with  the  Eternal,  and  at  last  she  reached  a  spiritual  as 
well  as  a  rhetorical  climax,  the  sincerity  of  which  was 
attested  by  abundant  tears :  "Oh,  Lawd,  help  us  keep 
ou'  own  do'h-steps  clean,  an'  den  ou'  neighbo's  will 
keep  dere's  clean  f'om  very  shame." 


LIFE'S  COMMISSION  131 

This  hints  at  the  central  citadel  of  morals,  the 
headquarters  of  the  spiritual  life.  From  within  come 
Life's  commissions,  and  from  within  must  come  the 
truest  inspirations,  the  safest  leadings.  There  are  no 
infallible  guides,  but  there  are  splendid  stays,  noble 
helps,  divine  encouragements  to  him  who  is  in  league 
with  time,  who  joins  hands  with  the  universe,  who 
becomes  a  partner  with  God  and  a  fellow-laborer  with 
Socrates,  Buddha,  and  Jesus. 

To  thine  own  self  be  true; 

And  it  must  follow,  as  the  night  the  day, 

Thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man. 

Yes,  if  you  would  do  your  work,  be  true  to  your- 
self; true  in  the  prosperity  which  I  hope  may  await 
you ;  true  none  the  less  in  the  adversity  which  doubt- 
less will  sometimes  overtake  you  all.  Never  mind 
results ;  devote  yourself  to  principles.  God  will  take 
care  of  consequences.  He  knows  how  to  use  the  weak 
and  to  preserve  the  humble.  On  to  your  work!  Let 
that  work  be  truly  done,  and  then  no  time,  opposition, 
defeat,  or  unpopularity  can  crush  either  you  or  your 
work. 


THE  LIFE  IN  COMMON 


ALL  ARE  NEEDED  BY  EACH  ONE 

Sow  thy  seed  nor  heed  the  reaper, 
Each  one  is  his  brother's  keeper; 
If  we  strive  not  for  his  zvinning, 
Sharers  lue  in  all  his  sinning. 

Chorus: 

All  are  needed  by  each  one. 
All  are  needed  by  each  one, 
Naught  is  fair  or  good  alone. 
All  are  needed  by  each  one. 

Seek  for  good  the  zvhole  world  over; 
That  we  search  for  zve  discover. 
Children  of  one  mother,  Nature, 
Kin  of  ours  each  fellow-creature. 

Strength  zve  lend  some  load  may  lighten; 
Others'  smiles  our  paths  may  brighten; 
Linked  be  all  in  one  endeavor, 
Love  shall  rule  the  world  forever. 

Althea  a.  Ogden 


VIII 
THE  LIFE  IN  COMMON 

All  are  needed  by  each  one; 
Nothing  is  fair  or  good  alone. 

— Emerson 

The  poem  from  which  you  have  selected  your 
text  is  the  text's  most  adequate  sermon.  You  have 
selected  the  heart  of  what  is  perhaps  Emerson's  best 
known  poem,  whose  title,  "Each  and  All,"  is  appeal, 
argument,  and  conclusion.  In  this  poem  the  poet  has 
shown  us  that  the  red-shirted  workman  in  the  field, 
the  lowing  heifer  on  the  upland  farm,  the  sparrow's 
note,  the  delicate  shell  on  the  sea-shore,  the  ground 
pine  curling  its  pretty  wreath,  the  violet's  breath,  pine 
cones,  and  acorns,  all  are  necessary  in  order  to  give 
any  one  of  them  its  meaning  or  its  beauty.  The  great 
Napoleon  at  the  head  of  his  army  stops  to  listen  to 
the  noon-day  bell,  which  rings  in  response  to  the  sex- 
ton's tugging  at  the  rope. 

All   are   needed  by  each   one. 

Once  this  lily-growing  earth  of  ours  was  bare  and 
dry,  and  enveloped  in  poisonous  gases.  Little,  quiet, 
and  silent  things  have  worked  away  to  make  it  what 
it  now  is.  Darwin  has  shown  us  how  the  earth  was 
prepared  for  man  by  the  humble  diligence  of  earth- 
worms.    They  were  the  first  plowmen ;  they  were  the 

135 


136  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

first  farmers;  they  helped  make  the  soil  which  they 
afterward  so  successfully  tilled,  I  cannot  stop  in 
the  fairyland  of  science  to  tell  how  the  wind  and  the 
rain,  the  dews  and  the  sunshine,  first  gave  the  lichens 
and  the  mosses,  and  how  these  prepared  the  way  for 
grasses  and  trees,  or  how  the  falling  leaves,  through 
unnumbered  thousands  of  years,  made  the  rich  mold 
out  of  which  grows  the  wheat  that  makes  the  bread 
for  our  daily  food,  and  the  cotton  that  makes  the 
cloth  for  our  daily  wear,  because  I  want  to  think  with 
you  chiefly  of  our  large  human  relations. 

Last  week,  somewhere  in  Kansas,  perhaps,  a  tired, 
unhappy  farmer  boy,  unhappy  because  he  had  to  leave 
his  school  before  it  was  out,  tired  because  those  Kan- 
sas farms  are  so  large  and  the  furrows  so  long,  plowed, 
and  plowed,  and  plowed.  This  week  the  same  boy  will 
plant  some  corn  or  sow  some  wheat  in  that  field  that 
the  flour  may  be  made  which  next  winter  will  make 
your  breakfast  attractive  and  your  dinner  splendid ; 
but  between  that  farmer  boy  in  Kansas  and  the  bread 
in  your  pantry  there  are  many  little  links,  each  so 
unimportant,  apparently,  that  you  can  scarcely  find  it, 
or  finding  it,  you  scarcely  give  it  a  thought;  but 
destroy  any  one  of  these  human  links  and  your  chain 
will  be  broken,  your  beefsteak  will  be  delayed,  or 
your  bread  will  be  wanting  altogether.  Think  of  the 
reaping,  the  threshing,  the  grinding  of  wheat,  the 
grading  and  tunneling  of  railroads,  the  vigilant  watch- 
man at  the  switches,  the  sweating  firemen  on  the 
engines,  the  iron  grasp  of  the  engineer's  hand  on  the 


THE  LIFE  IN  COMMON  137 

throttle-valve  as  the  monster  goes  puffing,  roaring, 
blazing,  into  the  night,  over  dizzy  bridges,  through 
weird  forests,  thus  bringing  you  your  breakfast 
biscuit. 

But  you  are  needed  by  the  farmer  boy  as  much  as 
the  farmer  boy  is  needed  by  you.  He  plows  that  the 
farm  may  be  paid  for.  He  sows  the  seed  that  some  day 
he  may  go  to  school  again ;  or,  perchance,  that  he  may 
have  money  to  build  a  house,  white  and  small,  on  the 
great  Kansas  prairie,  where  he  may  bring  a  little  wife 
who  will  plant  hollyhocks  in  the  front  yard  and  sun- 
flowers, squashes,  and  tomatoes  in  the  back  yard,  a 
little  wife  who  will  put  eggs  under  the  setting  hens, 
and  feed  and  love  the  chickens  when  they  are  hatched. 
And  when,  with  this  farmer  boy  grown  man,  the  little 
wife  begins  to  welcome  babes  into  the  home,  the  two 
will  toil  harder  than  ever  in  order  that  the  new  little 
boy  may  have  better  schooling  than  the  father  had 
and  that  the  new  little  girl  may  see  more  of  the  world 
of  life  than  the  little  mother  ever  did. 

The  new  little  boy  may  go  to  college,  though  the 
father  never  went  beyond  the  fourth  reader  in  the 
district  school  house,  built  at  the  crossing  of  the 
roads  on  the  wide,  wide  prairie,  and  the  new  little  girl 
may  see  Europe,  with  its  great  buildings  and  noble 
pictures,  though  the  little  mother  never  but  once  went 
out  of  the  county  in  which  she  lived,  and  then  only 
as  far  as  Topeka  to  visit  the  State  Fair,  where  she 
saw  such  beautiful  horses,  such , splendid  cows,  such 
wonderful  patch-work  quilts,  such  pianos,  such  great 


138  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

machines,  and  lovely  pottery,  such  pretty  engravings 
and  costly  books,  and  such  crowds  of  people,  that  she 
never  more  could  get  them  all  out  of  her  head,  or 
better  still,  out  of  her  heart.  And  the  farm  home, 
with  the  farmer  husband,  and  the  farmer  children 
had  a  new  meaning  in  her  eyes.  It  was  such  a 
blessed  week  that  it  helped  her  do  her  churning,  cook- 
ing, and  scrubbing  ever  afterward. 

I  say,  this  farmer  boy  could  not  build  his  house  so 
white  and  small  on  the  big  prairie,  and  the  farmer's 
wife  could  not  find  money  to  go  to  Topeka,  if  you 
were  not  at  this  end  of  the  line  needing  the  corn,  the 
wheat,  and  the  beef,  the  chickens,  and  the  eggs  they 
toiled  for. 

Yes,  "all  are  needed  by  each  one,"  not  only  on  the 
bread-and-butter,  shoes-and-stockings-side  of  life,  but 
on  the  love  and  thought  side  of  life.  Many  gentle 
things  come  from  far-off  and  humble  sources.  How 
we  like  the  legends  and  stories,  the  myths  and  fables 
from  the  older  world  of  fancy  and  miracle,  which  tell 
us  how  the  trees  and  the  flowers,  the  birds  and  the 
beasts,  are  all  linked  and  locked  with  us  in  what  is 
beautiful  and  tender. 

We  like,  with  Whittier  and  his  "old  Welsh  neigh- 
bor over  the  way,"  the  story  of  the  merciful  bird, 
who,  drop  by  drop,  carries  the  water  to  quench  some 
bit  of  the  fire  that  consumes  the  souls  of  sin ;  whence 
the  robin  is  called  "Bron  rhuddyn,"  the  "breast- 
burned  bird."  We  like,  too,  that  other  legend,  given 
us  by  Longfellow,  of  the  little  bird  who  tried  with  his 


THE  LIFE  IN  COMMON  139 

little  bill  to  pull  out  the  cruel  nails  that  fastened  Jesus 
to  the  cross,  and  ever  since  that  time  the  cross-bill  has 
worn  the  crossed  beak  and  carried  marks  of  blood 
upon  his  little  body.  And  we  like  the  still  older  story 
how,  when  all  the  world  was  in  the  water,  it  was  a 
dove  that  went  out  and  found  the  olive  branch  that 
gave  hope  to  Noah,  riding  in  his  ark. 

The  woods  of  Indiana,  southern  Illinois,  and  Ken- 
tucky, are  splendid  every  springtime  with  the  dog- 
wood in  bloom,  great  tree  bouquets,  blazing  like  a 
fragrant  fire  with  most  beautiful  and  delicate  red. 
The  old  missionaries  of  the  Catholic  church  used  to 
try  to  interest  the  Indians  in  the  Christian  story  by 
telling  them  that  the  dogwood  once  bore  milk-white 
blossoms,  but  that  on  Crucifixion  Day,  which,  accord- 
ing to  tradition,  occurred  in  the  early  spring,  it  blushed 
with  shame  over  the  cruel  act,  and  has  borne  red 
blossoms  ever  since. 

Have  you  ever  noticed  how  the  poplar  leaf  and 
the  leaves  of  all  the  aspen  family  are  forever  quiver- 
ing? Even  in  the  stillest  day  of  midsummer,  there  is 
a  tremble  and  a  flutter  of  the  leaves  of  the  poplar  tree. 
Botany  teaches  that  this  is  because  of  the  peculiar 
shape  of  the  petiole  and  the  way  the  leaf  is  fastened 
to  the  tree,  but  the  old  monks  used  to  teach  that  the 
cross  was  made  of  the  wood  of  this  tree,  and  that,  on 
account  of  the  cruel  deed,  all  the  poplars  in  the  forest 
shuddered,  and  the  sympathy  had  continued  ever 
since.  Lowell,  our  brave  American  poet,  rational 
and  radical  in  his  thought,  sings  the  same  truth  of 


I40  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

universal  sympathy  in  a  grander  fashion  in  that  great 
poem,  "The  Present  Crisis,"  which  was  one  of  the 
earliest  bugle  calls  of  our  great  war  for  freedom. 
Thirteen  years  before  Abraham  Lincoln  issued  his 
call  for  the  first  troops  to  free  the  slave,  Lowell  echoed 
the  cry  of  the  bondsman  and  proclaimed  terror  to  the 
slave-holder  in  these  lines : 

When  a  deed  is  done   for  Freedom,  through  the  broad  earth's 

aching  breast 
Runs  a  thrill  of  joy  prophetic,  trembling  on  from  east  to  west, 
And  the   slave,  where'er   he  cowers,   feels   the  soul  within  him 

climb 
To  that  awful  verge  of  manhood,  as  the  energy  sublime 
Of    a    century    bursts    full-blossomed    on    the    thorny    stem    of 

Time. 

Through  the  walls  of  hut  and  palace  shoots  the  instantaneous 

throe. 
When  the  travail  of  the  Ages  wrings  earth's  systems  to  and  fro; 
At  the  birth  of  each  new  Era,  with  a  recognizing  start, 
Nation   wildly  looks   at   nation,   standing  with   mute   lips   apart, 
And    glad    Truth's    yet    mightier    man-child    leaps    beneath    the 

Future's  heart. 

For  mankind  are  one  in  spirit,  and  an  instinct  bears  along, 
Round    the   earth's   electric   circle,    the   swift   flash   of    right   or 

wrong; 
Whether  conscious  or  unconscious,  yet  Humanity's  vast   frame 
Through    its    ocean-sundered    fibres    feels    the    gush    of    joy    or 

shame; 
In  the  gain  or  loss  of  one  race  all  the  rest  have  equal  claim. 

My  dear  children,  there  are  many  things  to  indicate 
that  this  is  a  cold,  selfish  world,  and  many  people  will 
tell  you  that  life  is  a  scramble,  a  rush  for  the  best 


THE  LIFE  IN  COMMON  1 41 

places,  and  that  he  who  can  get  a  front  seat  is  best 
off;  but  don't  you  beheve  it,  for  all  these  beautiful 
legends  and  a  whole  world  full  of  rn,ore  beautiful 
facts  go  to  prove  the  truth,  that 

All   are   needed   by    each    one, 

Nothing  is  fair  or  good  alone. 

This  is  a  truth  which  the  great  Herbert  Spencer,  a 
man  who  has  done  more,  perhaps,  to  give  the  present 
generation  foundation  for  great  and  inspiring 
thoughts  concerning  man  and  religion  than  any  other 
person  of  our  times,  states  in  this  way:  "No  one 
can  be  perfectly  free  till  all  are  free.  No  one  can  be 
perfectly  moral  till  all  are  moral.  No  one  can  be  per- 
fectly happy  till  all  are  happy." 

Now  the  most  beautiful  thing  about  it  all  is,  when 
we  come  to  think  of  it,  that  we  are  glad  it  is  so. 
We  do  not  want  to  be  happy,  do  we,  until  all  are 
happy?  We  would  be  ashamed  to  suffer  no  shame 
with  the  disgraced.  We  love  the  story  of  Jesus 
because  he  chose  to  share  the  lot  of  the  unhappy.  In 
our  studies  we  gloried  in  the  triumphs  of  Giordano 
Bruno,  of  Michael  Servetus,  and  the  Socinii,  because 
they  despised  the  freedom  that  left  others  in  bonds; 
because  they  were  glad  to  die  that  others  might  be 
more  free.  And  we  felt  that  Priestley,  driven  to  the 
wilds  of  Pennsylvania,  was  more  fortunate  than  the 
mob  who  felt  free  to  drive  him  there. 

There  is  a  deathless  story  told  of  one  Androcles,  a 
Roman  slave,  who  fled  from  bondage  and  hid  himself 
in  a  cave.   While  there,  to  his  horror,  he  saw  the  cave 


142  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

darkened  by  a  lion  whose  den  he  had  unwittingly 
entered.  Trembhngly  he  awaited  his  fate,  ready  to 
accept  the  death  he  nevertheless  preferred  to  slavery; 
but,  to  his  surprise,  the  lion,  instead  of  pouncing 
upon  him,  as  he  expected,  crawled  to  him  and  held 
up  a  sorely  inflamed  foot,  moaning  piteously.  The 
slave  discovered,  deeply  embedded  within  the  paw,  a 
cruel  thorn,  which  had  caused  great  inflammation  and 
much  festering.  Androcles  extracted  the  thorn  to  the 
great  relief  of  the  poor  beast,  who  showed  every  sign 
of  gratitude  within  his  power.  Weeks  after,  the  slave 
was  recaptured,  and,  according  to  the  cruel  customs 
of  Rome,  he  was  to  be  given  to  the  lions  for  the 
amusement  of  the  multitude  in  the  amphitheater. 
The  crowd  was  assembled,  the  signal  given,  and  the 
door  of  the  lion's  den  thrown  open ;  the  lion  made  one 
fierce  bound  toward  his  victim ;  but  suddenly  his  man- 
ner changed,  and,  instead  of  pouncing  upon  the 
astonished  man,  he  licked  his  hands  and  feet,  rubbing 
against  him  with  all  the  delight  which  a  dog  shows  on 
finding  its  master.  Androcles  recognized  the  lion  of 
the  cave,  and  the  lion  recognized  the  friend  who  had 
helped  him  in  his  extremity. 

There  is  deep  philosophy  in  this  story.  The 
world,  that  seems  so  cruel  and  unkind,  recognizes  its 
helpers.  It  is  helpful  to  the  helping,  tender  to  the 
tender.  It  is  cruel  only  to  the  selfish;  the  unselfish 
find  themselves  paid  from  within. 

A  miser  was  offered  as  much  gold  dust  as  he  could 
hold  in  his  two  hands.     He,  anxious  to  get  as  much 


THE  LIFE  IN  COMMON  143 

as  possible,  spread  wide  his  fingers  so  as  to  get  big 
handfuls,  and  lo !  all  the  gold  dust  ran  through,  and 
he  got  nothing  at  all.  So  does  this  world  treat  the 
selfish.  The  envious  are  suspicious,  the  greedy  go 
hungry,  the  selfish  are  lonely,  the  self-indulgent  are 
miserable,  though  they  count  their  wealth  by  millions 
and  lie  down  and  rise  up  in  luxury. 

I  wish  I  could  make  you  understand  not  only  that 
you  need  everybody  and  everything,  but  also  that  you 
are  needed  by  everybody  and  everything.  Robert 
Browning  has  a  pretty  poem  which  tells  of  a  bard 
who  was  singing  for  a  prize  to  the  accompaniment  of 
his  lyre.  Suddenly,  in  the  midst  of  his  contest,  one  of 
the  strings  of  his  lyre  snapped,  and  disgrace  and 
defeat  were  imminent,  when  a  cricket  alighted  upon 
the  instrument  and, 

With    her   chirrup,   low   and    sweet, 
Sav'd  the  singer  from  defeat, 

by  sustaining  the  note  which  his  broken  string  failed 
to  give.  At  the  close  of  the  contest,  so  grateful  was 
the  poet  to  his  little  helper  that  he  had  a  life-size 
statue  of  himself  with  his  lyre  cut  in  marble,  and  on 
the  lyre  he  perched  his  cricket  partner,  ever  to  keep  a 
memorial  of  the  service. 

How  often  such  a  service  is  rendered  by  the  little 
ones,  the  weak  ones,  we  can  never  tell.  One  of  the 
curiosities  at  the  Columbian  Exposition  in  Chicago 
was  a  full-sized  reproduction  of  La  Rabida,  the  mon- 
astery near  Palos,  where  the  weary  and  almost  dis- 
couraged  Columbus   once  happened  unexpectedly  to 


144  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

find  the  good  monk  Juan  Perez,  who  became  inter- 
ested in  his  scheme  and  promptly  interested  Queen 
Isabella  and  others.  John  Fiskc  is  inclined  to  accept 
the  account  which  says  that  Christopher  Columbus 
knocked  at  the  gates  of  this  monastery  for  the  sake  of 
asking  for  some  bread  and  water  for  his  little  twelve- 
year-old  boy.  If  this  story  is  true,  little  Diego 
Columbus  was  the  cricket  perched  on  the  lyre  of  the 
explorer,  that  saved  the  music  and  won  the  prize. 
He  helped  discover  America. 

Great  streams  flow  from  little  springs.  We  all 
have  a  note  to  carry.  If  we  refuse  to  sound  it,  there 
is  somewhere  a  chord  incomplete. 

I  like  a  short  story,  published  not  long  ago,  of  a 
little  child  in  Arkansas,  who,  in  trying  to  teach  another 
little  child  how  to  make  a  peculiar  kind  of  brown 
bread,  reconciled  two  angry  fathers,  prevented  an  ugly 
duel,  and  made  friends  and  neighbors  of  those  who 
were  deadly  enemies.  It  is  a  good  story,  but  nothing 
compared  to  what  the  author  of  that  story,  a  woman 
of  Iowa,  has  done  in  real  life.  She  read  of  the 
hungry  thousands  in  Russia,  the  grim  famine  that 
threatened  to  starve  whole  communities  before  the 
new  crop  would  come,  and  her  woman  heart  said,  "I 
can  do  something."  So  she  started  out  among  the 
farmers  of  Iowa  and  said  to  them,  "You  have  no 
money,  but  give  me  corn,  give  me  wheat,  give  me 
flour,  give  me  potatoes."  She  went  to  the  railroads 
and  said,  "Give  me  cars  to  carry  these  provisions  to 
the  seacoast."     She  went  to  the  government  and  said, 


;;.<  THE  LIFE  IN  COMMON  145 

"Give  me  a  ship  to  carry  this  food  to  the  starving  men 
and  women  of  Russia."  And  the  Iowa  farmers  filled 
the  freight  cars  with  corn,  the  railroads  hauled  it  to 
the  sea,  the  good  ship  "Indiana"  carried  it  across  the 
ocean,  and  they  had  a  great  thanksgiving  service  at 
the  Russian  fort  of  Libau.  When  the  first  train-load 
of  food  started  out  for  the  hungry  district  it  was 
covered  with  the  American  and  Russian  flags,  the 
bands  were  playing,  and  there  were  shouts  and  sobs, 
prayers  and  songs. 

The  work  that  was  begun  in  Iowa  was  taken  up 
in  Minneapolis,  St.  Paul,  Philadelphia,  Cincinnati, 
and  elsewhere.  All  this  was  due  to  the  lone  woman 
who  wrote  "The  Arkansas  Story"  and  "The  Loaf  of 
Peace,"  over  the  pen  name  of  Octave  Thanet.  It  is 
thought  that  enough  corn  was  sent  to  Russia  in  this 
way  to  keep  fifty  thousand  people  alive  until  the  crops 
came  to  their  help.  How  little  it  was,  for  each  one  to 
do,  and  how  easy  it  would  be  to  keep  the  world  from 
want  if  only  we  all  remembered  that 

All   are   needed  by   each   one, 
and  that 

Nothing  is  fair  or  good  alone. 

All  these  things  seem  big  things  when  they  are 
done.  I  want  you  to  believe  that  the  little  things  are 
worth  doing,  because  they,  too,  are  "needed  by  each 
one,"  even  when  they  remain  little,  so  little  that  they 
are  never  heard  of,  so  little  that  men  can  never  dis- 
cover any  results,  good  or  bad.    We  all  have  an  offer- 


146  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

ing  of  some  kind  that  we  might  make,  Hke  the  old 
man  in  this  poem  which  I  found  in  a  child's  magazine : 

An  old  man  wheeling  a  heavy  cart, 

Pausing  oft  to  rest  on  his  weary  way, 

While  western  sunbeams  in  show'r  of  gold, 
O'er  the  wrinkled  features  in  glory  play : 

Fair  as  a  sunbeam  across  his  path 

Darts    a    merry   child    in   his    boyish    glee. 

Pausing  abruptly  at  figure  bent 

With  the  tottering  step  and  trembling  knee. 

Poor  old  man !     And  the  wee  boy  stopped. 

Sorrowfully  shaking  his  curly  head; 
Then  a  happy  thought  to  the  baby  came — 
"Just  take  a  bite  of  my  apple,"  he  said. 

The  old  man  stopped  at  the  boy's  request. 
Whilst  blessing  the  dear  little  hand  for  aye; 

Then  took  up  his  load  with  a  lighter  heart 
As  the  child  went  singing  back  to  his  play. 

You  can  give  "a  bite  of  your  apple"  and  make  the 
load  a  little  lighter  all  day  long  to  some  weary  worker. 
If  we  would  all  give  "a  bite  of  our  apple,"  there 
would  be  no  starving  children  in  Russia  or  anywhere 
else,  and  there  would  be  very  much  more  contented- 
ness  and  kindliness  in  the  world  everywhere. 

Turgenieff,  a  Russian  poet,  in  one  of  his  poems  in 
prose,  tells  of  meeting  a  beggar  who  asked  for  alms. 
The  poet  looked  for  a  penny  in  all  his  pockets  and 
could  find  none,  and  then  in  his  confusion  took  the 
beggar's  dirty  hand  and  said,  "Don't  be  vexed  with 
me,  brother,  I  have  nothing  with  me,  brother."  The 
beggar  raised  his  blood-shot  eyes,  his  blue  lips  smiled, 


THE  LIFE  IN  COMMON  147 

and  he  returned  the  pressure  of  the  chilled  finders  as 
he  stammered,  ''Never  mind,  brother,  thank  you  for 

li  t'thl     T        """"  "  ^'''■"     ^^^^^P^  ^'  ^-^  ^  better 

fck  t  t"  P^'V''  P"^'  "^'^^^  ^^-  had  in  his 
pocket      The  gift  of  a  kindly  word,   the  gift  of  a 

cordial  smile,  of  a  kind  heart,  is  a  benediction.  A 
genial  face,  a  kindly  voice,  a  willing  hand,  a  helpful 
soul  make  one  a  millionaire,  though  he  be  as  poor  as 
the  Raggedy  Man,"  the  boys'  friend,  that  Whitcomb 
Kiley  has  helped  the  boy  to  describe: 

W'y,  The  Raggedy  Man-he's  'ist  so  good 
He  sphts  the  kindlin'  an'  chops  the  wood, 
An'  nen  he  spades  in  our  garden  too,— 
An'  does  most  things  'at  boys  can't  do. 
He  clumbed  clean  up  in  our  big  tree 
An'  shook  a'  apple  down  fer  me— 
An'  nother'n  too,  fer  'Lizabuth  Ann— 
An'  nother'n,  too,  fer  The  Raggedy  Man.- 
Am't  he  a'  awful  kind  Raggedy  Man? 
Raggedy!     Raggedy!     Raggedy   Man!" 
I  Wish  I  could  make  you  believe  that  our  beautiful 
ext  grows  more  and  more  beautiful  as  we  go  from 
things  to  thoughts,  as  we  think  less  of  body  and  more 
of  mind    and  forget  the  hunger  of  stomach  in  trying 
to  satisfy  the  hunger  of  heart.     He  does  well  who 
shares   an   apple,    but   he   does   better  who   shares   a 
thought.     It  IS  easier  to  go  without  a  coat  than  with- 
out a  friend.     Better  have  a  sore   foot  than  a  sore 
heart.     And  the  noblest  truth  in  this  noble  motto  of 
yours  is  that  not  a  thought  is  lost,   not  a  wish   is 
wasted. 


148  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Thus  we  come  to  think  of  prayer,  of  God,  and  of 
the  never-ending  Hfe.  Every  wish  helps  to  make  a 
will.  To  seek  is  to  half  find.  To  hope  is  to  begin 
already  to  live  that  life.  If  we  are  "needed  by  each 
one,"  we  are  also  needed  by  that  all  we  call  God.  The 
cricket  and  the  bard  belong  to  his  orchestra,  and  the 
one  no  more  than  the  other  can  neglect  his  notes  with- 
out marring  the  great  music. 

I  have  not  talked  to  you  much  about  heaven  and 
the  beyond,  in  our  lessons,  not  because  I  have  not 
great  hopes,  but  because  I  have,  because  all  my  hopes 
rest  on  the  thought  of  the  value  and  the  beauty  of  the 
Now.  The  heaven  that  is  to  be  is  the  heaven  that 
begins  when  the  boy  gives  "a  bite  of  his  apple."  The 
heaven  that  I  believe  in  is  the  heaven  whose  near  gate 
is  through  that  which  a  "Raggedy  Man"  may  enter, 
when 

He's    the    goodest    man   ever    you    saw. 

I  believe  in  the  high  hopes  of  Easter  Day.  There 
is  a  link  that  binds  the  life  beyond  to  the  life  here. 
When  we  cease  to  be  here,  we  shall  begin  to  be  there, 
where  our  dear  ones  have  gone  already.  But  now  we 
are  here,  and  so  we  will  believe  that  we  are  needed 
here.    And  there,  as  here, 

Nothing  is  fair  or  good  alone, 

for  everything  is  linked  over  there  as  here.     Indeed 
there  is  no  there  or  here,  for  all  is  one. 

We  have  talked  of  John  the  Baptist,  that  weird, 
wild  man  who  called  himself  a  "voice  crying  in  the 


THE  LIFE  IN  COMMON  149 

desert."  It  was  a  voice  soon  silenced,  but  Jesus  heard 
it,  and  he  took  up  the  strain  and  sounded  the  note 
John  tried  for  and  could  not  reach.  I  wonder  if  you 
can  understand  the  following  parable.  I  know  not 
whether  it  is  more  science  or  more  poetry,  for  it  is 
both. 

The  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness,  crying  out  in 
lone  despair,  seen  only  by  the  hard  blue  sky,  by  the  sands 
lying  parched  and  glazed  in  the  unchecked  glare  of  the  sun. 

The  sands  heeded  not. 

Verdureless,  ragged,  abrupt,  defiant,  stood  the  mountains 
round  about.  In  mocking,  uncompleted  fragments,  they 
echoed  back. 

The  desert  was  still  again.  All  was  desolate,  unchanged, 
silent,  and  the  one  who  had  raised  his  protest  against  the  world 
sank  exhausted  into  the  dreamless  slumber  we  call  Death. 

The  stars  came  out,  cold,  unpitying,  hard  as  diamonds,  and 
looked  down  upon  him. 

Had  he  cried  out  in  vain? 

Is  anything  created  out  of  nothing,  to  no  purpose,  and  only 
to  be   resolved  back  into   nothing? 

The  vibration  of  his  voice  died  not  away. 

The  reverberation  loosened  a  grain  of  sand  from  the  moun- 
tain side.  Another  followed  it,  and  others.  A  mighty  stone 
slipped  away.     An  avalanche  was  started. 

From  beneath  the  foundation  of  the  mountain  burst  forth 
a  spring  of  water,  which  before  had  gone  silent,  unknown  to 
the  sea. 

Was  it  there  for  naught? 

And  where  the  stream  flowed  down  into  the  desert,  there 
came  greenness  and  birds  and  beasts.  Men  came,  and  they 
passed  jestingly  by  the  white  bones  of  him  who  had  cried  out. 
And  they  reclaimed  the  land,  and  with  the  waters  they  drove 


ISO  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

back  the  waves  of  sand,  as  men  with  dikes  of  earth  drive  back 
the  waves  of  the  sea.     And  the  desert  blossomed  as  the  rose. 

The  white  bones  of  him  who  had  long  ago  cried  out  in  the 
wilderness,  lost  their  semblance  in  the  Chemistry  of  Change. 

But  had  he  lived  in  vain? 

Come,  dear  children,  again  give  me  your  hands, 
for  I  need  you  more  than  you  need  me.  Childhood 
endows  age.  Youth  enriches  the  gray  hairs  of  the 
old.  We  all  have  a  voice,  weak  and  small  though  it 
may  be,  and  life  to  each  of  us  at  times  seems  a  desert. 
I  say  seems,  because  there  is  no  place  where  we  may 
not  loosen  the  sands  which  will  give  way  to  another 
and  another,  and  eventually  find  the  spring  and  make 
room  for  the  brook  that  shall  cause  the  wilderness  to 
bloom. 


MORE  STATELY  MANSIONS 


This  is  the  ship   of  pearl,  which,  poets  feign, 
Sails  the  unshadowed  main, — 
The  venturous  bark  that  Hings 
On  the  sweet  summer  wind  its  purple  wings 
In  gulfs  enchanted,  wher^e  the  Siren  sings. 

And  coral  reefs   lie   bare, 
Where  the  cold  sea-maids  rise  to  sun  their  streaming 
hair. 

Year  after  year  beheld  the  silent  toil 
That  spread  his  lustrous  coil; 
Still,  as  the  spiral  grew, 
He  left  the  past  year's  dwelling  for  the  nezv. 
Stole  with  soft  step  its  shining  archway  through, 

Built  up  its  idle  door. 
Stretched   in    his    last-found   home,   and   kneiv    the    old 
no  more. 

Build  thee  more  stately  mansions,  O  my  soul, 

As  the  szvift  seasons  roll! 

Leave  thy  loiv-vaulted  past! 
Let  each  new  temple,  nobler  than  the  last, 
Shut  thee  from  heaven  with  a  dome  more  vast. 

Till  thou  at  length  art  free. 
Leaving  thine  outgrozvn  shell  by  life's  unresting  sea! 
-Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  in  "The  Chambered  Nautilus" 


IX 

MORE  STATELY  MANSIONS 

Build  thee  more  stately  mansions,  O  my  Soul. — Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes 

I  remember  your  delight  in  the  story  of  the  Httle 
creature  who,  as  fast  as  he  outgrew  the  dimensions  of 
the  biggest  house  he  had  been  able  to  build  for  him- 
self at  any  given  time,  was  willing  to  crawl  quietly 
out  of  his  cramped  quarters,  close  up  the  door  of  the 
home  that  now  fettered  him,  and  proceed  to  build  for 
himself  a  new  house  more  adequate  to  his  present 
needs;  and  it  was  your  pleasure  in  the  study  of  this 
marvelous  little  animal  that  led  you  to  select  this  line 
from  Holmes's  "Chambered  Nautilus"  as  your  class 
motto  and  as  a  text  for  my  class  sermon. 

In  1880  the  school  children  of  Cincinnati  held  an 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  birthday  celebration,  and  the 
genial  doctor  wrote  them  a  letter  in  which  he  said, 
"If  you  will  remember  me  by  'The  Chambered  Nauti- 
lus,' 'The  Promise,'  and  'The  Living  Temple,'  your 
memories  will  be  a  monument  I  shall  think  more  of 
than  bronze  or  marble."  It  was  this  letter  of  the  poet 
that  led  us  to  explore  the  beauties  of  the  poem,  and 
the  still  greater  beauty  of  the  thing.  The  lines  of 
Holmes  are  so  polished  that  they  stand  out  clear  and 
bright,  but  not  so  polished  are  they  as  the  glistening 
walls  of  this  house  of  the  little  mollusk  from  tropic 

^53 


154  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

sea  which  I  hold  in  my  hand.  The  stanzas  of 
Holmes  are  thought-laden,  but  more  suggestive  still 
is  this  poem  of  the  deep  sea,  for  it  represents  thoughts 
too  deep  for  words. 

Let  us  first  try,  then,  to  go  back  of  the  poem  to  the 
thing,  and  then  back  of-  the  thing  to  that  mystery  of 
life  which  runs  through  all  nature  and  is  back  of  all 
things,  linking  your  life  and  mine  not  only  with  sea- 
shells  but  with  sunshine,  stars,  poets,  and  the  mystery 
which  we  revere  as  God;  the  power  from  whom  all 
things  come,  in  whom  all  things  are,  to  whom  all 
things  tend. 

Our  Pearly  Nautilus  has  always  appealed  to  the 
fancy  of  the  poet  and  challenged  the  admiration  of 
the  naturalist.  His  name,  which  means  mariner,  or 
sailor,  holds  a  pretty  myth,  which  we  will  not  pursue, 
because  the  plain  scientific  facts  are  still  prettier  and 
more  curious.  In  youth  this  little  creature  finds  him- 
self a  soft  lump  of  unprotected  jelly-like  material, 
lying  at  the  mercy  of  every  prowling  creature  of  the 
deep.  There  is  nothing  for  him  to  do  but  lie  quiet 
and  cautious  in  some  sheltered  cove  while  he  goes  to 
work  to  build,  out  of  minute  particles  of  matter,  little 
stores  secreted  from  the  salt  water,  cemented  by  air 
and  sunshine,  a  pearl  house  over  his  back  into  which 
he  may  retreat  from  danger,  and  at  the  door  of  which 
he  may  sit  (if  that  is  the  way  a  little  "mouth-foot," 
or  cephalopod,  takes  his  ease)  and  gather  his  dinner 
from  whatever  toothsome  thing  passes  within  reach 
of  his  toothless  mouth,  eating  and  growing  until,  in 


MORE  STATELY  MANSIONS  155 

due  time,  he  has  hterally  grown  too  big  for  his  house. 
But,  insteaid  of  abandoning  it  entirely,  he  slips  out, 
walls  up  the  little  room  which  he  has  left,  and  builds 
on  a  new  main  part  in  front  which  he  enjoys  for  a 
season;  and,  when  age  brings  size  and  strength  too 
great  for  the  second  house,  he  again  slips  out,  walls  it 
up,  and  constructs  for  himself  a  third;  and  thus  the 
process  goes  on  until  the  beautiful  spiral  shell  is  com- 
pleted. 

On  the  outside  it  is  all  symmetry  and  unity;  and 
not  until  the  scientist,  years  hence,  perchance,  picks 
up  the  beautiful  shell  and  splits  it  through  the  middle, 
does  he  discover  that  the  shell  is  not  one,  but  many 
houses,  and  that  the  little  builder  in  the  sea  never 
occupied  but  one  at  a  time,  in  each  case  withdrawing 
for  the  sake  of  more  ample  quarters,  the  last  being 
always  the  noblest  house.  But,  as  if  the  little  animal 
were  grateful  for  the  service  rendered  by  the  smaller 
dwellings,  a  line  of  communication,  the  purpose  of 
which  science  is  as  yet  scarcely  able  to  tell,  runs  like 
a  slender  thread  of  memory  through  all  the  apart- 
ments. I  have  said  the  rooms  were  empty,  but  they 
are  not  wholly  so;  for  these  sealed  chambers,  once 
the  home  of  the  little  sailor,  seem  to  be  charged  with 
a  gas  that  makes  more  buoyant  the  httle  life-boat. 
The  earlier  books  used  to  say  that  these  chambers 
could  be  filled  and  emptied  at  pleasure,  and  thus  the 
little  house  could  rise  to  the  surface  or  sink  to  the 
bottom  at  the  will  of  the  captain  on  the  forecastle; 
this  little  thread  of  tissue  which  runs  from  fore  to  aft 


156  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

being  supposed  to  answer  to  the  tube  running  through 
a  series  of  railroad  cars,  by  means  of  which  the  con- 
ductor can  open  or  shut  the  valves  of  the  air-brake  at 
will.  But  the  later  books  are  not  so  sure  about  this, 
and  scientists  are  now  inclined  to  regard  this  story 
as  a  relic  of  that  larger  one  in  which  the  earlier  poets 
delighted :  how  this  little  sailor,  when  the  weather 
was  fine  and  the  water  smooth,  could  come  to  the 
surface,  spread  his  little  sail,  and  travel  by  the  help 
of  the  wind. 

So  here  we  have  that  which  stirred  Oliver  Wen- 
dell Holmes  to  write  in  the  short  meter  of  song  what 
I  have  clumsily  and  inadequately  told  in  the  long 
meter  of  prose.  Beautiful  are  the  verses,  but  not  so 
beautiful  or  wonderful  as  the  thing. 

Here  we  have  another  illustration  of  what  I  never 
tire  of  saying,  especially  to  children,  that  science  is 
beautiful  poetry,  more  beautiful  than  anything  we 
find  in  the  books.  Nature  is  the  great  Poet;  indeed, 
the  word  "poet"  originally  meant  maker,  creator, 
and,  of  course,  the  most  wonderful  poems  are  those 
produced  by  the  great  Maker,  the  Infinite  Creator. 
This  "ship  of  pearl,"  which  the  "wandering  sea''"  has 
"cast  from  her  lap  forlorn,"  is  neither  more  nor  less 
marvelous  than  millions  of  other  things  that  tempt 
your  interest  and  are  anywhere  and  everywhere  ready 
to  reward  your  studies,  enrich  your  minds,  and  sweeten 
your  lives.  From  the  little  fly  upon  the  wall  to  the 
twinkling  star  in  the  sky  are  scattered  the  wonder- 
poems,  so  simple  and  so  easy  that  little  children  need 


MORE  STATELY  MANSIONS  157 

never  tire  of  them,  so  profound  and  so  great  that  the 
wise  philosophers  grow  gray  without  exhausting 
them. 

This  "house  of  pearl"  is  the  product  of  a  stupid 
little  animal,  very  stupid  indeed.  He  is  a  sort  of 
cousin  to  the  oyster,  and  probably  the  oyster  is  the 
smarter  of  the  two;  and  still  how  wonderful  and  inter- 
esting the  Nautilus  is.  You  have  read  Kingsley's 
"Water  Babies,"  I  hope,  and  you  may  be  sure  that  the 
more  wonderful  half  of  the  book  is  the  "really-truly" 
half.  The  most  interesting  things  that  Tom  saw  in 
his  journey  to  the  world's  end  were  such  as  the  scient- 
ists have  found  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea  and  in  the 
earth;  and  Charles  Kingsley  was  able  to  write  such  a 
delightful  book  for  children  because  he  was  a  man 
who  had  eyes  to  see  the  marvels  about  him,  or  who 
was,  at  least,  willing  to  learn  of  those  who  had  open 
eyes.  He  has  been  able  to  tell  us  things  quite  as  inter- 
esting in  almost  as  delightful  a  way  about  a  piece  of 
chalk,  the  coal  in  the  grate,  a  piece  of  slate-pencil,  as 
about  the  water  babies,  because  he  thought  it  worth 
while  to  study  those  things  which  most  people  are 
glad  to  step  on,  avoid,  or  get  rid  of. 

Many  years  ago,  when  I  used  to  travel  much  as 
a  missionary,  I  had  to  drive  all  one  dark  Saturday 
night  through  the  pine  woods  of  Michigan  in  order 
to  get  to  my  Sunday  morning  appointment.  The 
liveryman  gave  me  as  a  driver  a  little  German  boy 
about  fourteen  years  old,  by  the  name  of  "Gus."  I 
was  assured  that  he  was  a  good  driver  and  a  smart 


158  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

little  chap,  who  would  get  there  all  right.  It  was  a 
long  night's  ride  through  thirty  miles  of  pine  woods, 
and  we  talked  of  many  things  in  order  to  keep  our- 
selves awake.  Once  Gus  said  he  thought  a  fire-bug 
was  the  "most  curiousest  thing  in  the  world;"  and  a 
little  while  after,  as  the  stars  came  out  through  the 
high  tops  of  the  trees,  between  the  cracks  of  the  wild, 
scudding  clouds  still  higher  up,  he  was  inclined  to 
change  his  mind  and  think  that  a  star  was  the  "most 
curiousest  thing  in  the  world;"  and  he  wanted  me  to 
explain  to  him  how  it  was  that  the  stars  did  not  fall 
down,  or  fall  up,  or  get  all  mixed  up  somehow.  And 
when  I  could  not  tell  him,  he  wondered  if  it  might  not 
be  that  they  were  all  mixed  up,  anyway,  all  a  going 
which-way,  and  we  did  not  know  enough  to  know  the 
difference.  Fortunately,  I  could  assure  him  that  this 
is  not  the  case;  that  the  stars  do  not  get  mixed  up, 
but  all  keep  their  right  places.  Then  Gus  and  I,  in  the 
dark  grim  woods,  fell  to  wondering,  until  I  think  we 
were  both  almost  afraid,  so  solemn  was  the  great 
mystery. 

Perhaps  to  drive  away  this  sense  of  awe,  so  heavy 
for  a  little  boy  to  carry  whose  business  it  was  to  keep 
the  track  in  the  dark  woods  at  midnight,  he  asked  me 
what  was  the  "most  stupidest  thing  in  the  world."  I 
did  not  know,  but  he  thought  it  was  a  calf ;  "they 
are  so  stupid  that  if  you  try  to  drive  a  lot  of  them, 
even  to  get  a  drink  of  milk,  no  two  of  them  will  go 
the  same  way  at  the  same  time."  I  was  not  very 
bright  that  night,  not  so  bright  as  Gus,   and  I   did 


MORE  STATELY  MANSIONS  159 

not  know  what  to  say  to  him  when  he  asked  me  if  I 
knew  of  anything  "any  more  stupider  than  a  calf." 
But  since  then  I  have  thought  of  many  things  more 
stupid  than  a  calf;  for  instance,  a  boy  or  girl  who 
goes  through  the  world  never  looking  for  curious 
things,  never  asking  strange  questions,  never  trying 
to  get  acquainted  with  bugs  and  stars,  trees  and  birds, 
and  all  kinds  of  things,  as  Gus  did.  And  I  think 
grown  up  men  and  women  who  are  afraid  of  science, 
who  do  not  know  that  this  pearl-building  Nautilus 
and  all  his  "mouth-footed"  and  "stomach-footed" 
relatives  are  little  texts  in  some  of  the  chapters  of 
God's  great  book  of  revelation,  are  more  stupid  than 
the  calf,  because  they  have  minds  to  tell  them  just 
such  things  if  they  would  only  use  them,  and  the  calf 
has  not,  so  of  course  it  is  not  his  fault. 

The  wisest  men  are  those  who  study  near  things 
and  who  remember  that  all  the  poems  of  the  great 
Maker  are  worth  studying.  The  knowledge  of  these 
nature-poems  makes  men  gentle  and  kind,  truthful 
and  noble,  like  Agassiz  or  Darwin,  or  like  Owen,  the 
wise  scientist  who  wrote  the  first  careful  study  of  our 
chambered  Nautilus. 

It   was   fifty   years   ago 

In    the    pleasant    month    of    May, 
In  the  beautiful  Pays  de  Vaud, 

A   child   in   its   cradle   lay. 
And  Nature,  the  old  nurse,  took 

The   child  upon  her  knee, 
Saying:     "Here  is  a  story-book 

Thy  Father  has  written  for  thee. 


i6o  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

"Come  wander  with  me,"  she  said, 
"Into  regions  yet  untrod; 
And   read  what  is  still  unread 
In  the  manuscripts  of  God." 

And  he  wandered  away  and  away 
With  Nature,  the  dear  old  nurse, 
Who  sang  to  him  night  and  day 
The    rhymes    of    the   universe. 

And  whenever  the  way  seemed  long, 

Or  his  heart  began  to  fail, 
She  would  sing   a  more  wonderful   song, 

Or  tell  a  more  marvelous  tale. 

So  she  kept  him  still  a  child, 

And  would  not  let  him  go, 
Though  at  times  his  heart  beat  wild 

For  the  beautiful  Pays  de  Vaud; 
Though  at  times  he  heard  in  his  dreams 

The  Ranz   des   Vaches   of   old, 
And  the  rush  of  mountain  streams 

From  glaciers  clear  and  cold; 
And  the  mother  at  home  said,   "Hark! 

For  his  voice  I  listen  and  j'earn; 
It  is  growing  late  and  dark. 

And  my  boy  does  not  return!" 

So  says  Longfellow,  in  his  story  of  Agassiz.  But 
let  us  get  back  to  our  little  poem  in  pearl,  that  we  may 
be  ready  for  "the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter," 
as  the  preachers  say,  before  my  sermon  gets  too  long 
for  it.  This  foolish  little  mollusk  should  not  receive 
too  much  credit,  for  he  but  obeyed  the  impulse,  strong 
in  all  of  us,  to  get  to  the  front,  the  desire  to  see  and 
hear  all  that  is  going.     He  yielded  to  the  law  that  is 


MORE  STATELY  MANSIONS  i6i 

back  of  everything,  the  same  law  that  makes  a  butter- 
fly out  of  a  grub,  a  frog  out  of  a  tadpole;  the  law  that 
impels  the  chick  to  break  the  egg ;  the  law  that  taught 
man  first  to  build  his  wigwam,  then  his  cabin,  then 
his  cottage,  and  at  last  a  mansion  or  a  palace.  You 
read  something  of  this  law  in  the  polished  pebble  as 
in  the  beautiful  shell.  The  acorn  teaches  it,  the  oak 
exemplifies  it.  It  is  as  great  as  the  universe,  as  old  as 
time.  It  is  gentle  enough  to  color  a  rose,  mighty 
enough  to  make  a  world.  I  love  to  think  of  it  as 
God's  beautiful  law  working  in  our  own  bodies,  shap- 
ing our  own  minds  as  everywhere  else.  It  is  the 
beautiful  law  of  evolution,  the  law  of  unfolding,  that 
which  makes  things  grow  from  weak  to  strong,  from 
simple  to  complex,  from  good  to  better  everywhere. 
All  living  things  must  grow  thus  or  die  and  fall  to 
pieces,  to  be  made  up  again  after  a  better  pattern  and 
for  better  uses. 

I  said  this  law  works  everywhere;  but  sometimes 
man  is  stupidly  afraid  of  it  and  tries  to  avoid  it,  or 
even  to  change  it  or  put  an  end  to  it  altogether,  and 
then  comes  trouble.  Especially  does  trouble  in  religion 
often  come  in  this  way.  Men  have  sometimes  found 
themselves  in  what  at  the  time  seemed  a  beautiful 
temple,  or  a  beautiful  book  has  been  given  them,  or 
they  have  been  taught  by  a  noble  leader,  and  they 
have  said :  "There  can  never  be  a  better  temple  than 
this;  this  is  the  holiest  place  in  all  the  universe;  there 
can  never  be  any  wiser  book  than  this ;  this  is  the  most 
sacred  page  ever  written  or  that  ever  will  be  written ; 


i62  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

and  this  is  the  best  teacher,  the  only  true  one."  They 
have  been  so  sure  that  they  have  determined  never  to 
look  any  farther,  never  to  change  their  minds  about 
any  of  these  things.  You  know  they  used  to  be  so 
sure  of  these  matters  that  they  would  put  people  to 
death  if  they  suggested  anything  different.  That  is 
why  they  burned  Giordano  Bruno  at  Rome  and  Mi- 
chael Servetus  at  Geneva,  and  many  others.  This  is 
what  we  call  superstition;  it  is  trying  to  stand  still, 
as  the  word  implies,  in  a  world  that  is  on  the  move. 
Everything  is  going,  and  we  must  go  too,  or  else  get 
out  of  the  way;  otherwise  we  become  a  stumbling- 
block,  a  hindrance  to  others,  a  misery  to  ourselves. 

Men  not  heeding  this  law  of  the  universe,  forget- 
ting the  lesson  of  the  chambered  Nautilus,  have  gone 
to  work  to  build  them  a  thought-house  to  their  liking, 
one  that  fitted  them  in  every  respect  just  as  the  earlier 
shell-house  of  the  Nautilus  fitted  him.  And  then  they 
have  said,  "This  is  good  enough.  Do  not  trouble  us 
more  about  building  thought-houses."  They  have 
tried  to  stay  inside  the  little  thought-house  in  spite 
of  growth,  in  spite  of  the  beautiful  outside  world  and 
the  abundance  of  new  material  for  building  new 
houses.  This  kind  of  thought-house  which  people 
want  to  remain  in  unchanged  forever  is  called  a 
"creed."  Can  you  think  how  curious  a  place  for  us 
to  live  in  would  be  the  pentagonal  or  five-cornered 
thought-house  of  John  Calvin,  or,  still  worse,  the 
wild  jumble  of  words  in  the  Athanasian  creed?  And. 
yet  men  try  to  stay  in  these  houses  by  doubling  up, 


MORE  STATELY  MANSIONS  163 

twisting,  packing,  and  squeezing  themselves  in  every 
way  possible.  A  creed  is  last  year's  cell  made  to  do 
duty  this  year. 

A  man  who  tries  to  live  inside  of  an  old  creed  is  a 
chicken  who  means  always  to  enjoy  life  inside  the 
eggshell.  It  was  good  enough  once;  why  not  good 
enough  all  the  time?  If  it  was  big  enough  last  week, 
it  is  big  enough  this  week.  No,  not  if  you  have  had  a 
week's  healthy  growth  meantime. 

When  I  tell  you  that  all  the  Presbyterians,  Trini- 
tarians, Unitarians,  and  all  the  other  kinds  of  "arians" 
came  into  the  world  in  this  way  and  are  trying  to  stay 
in  the  world  largely  in  this  way,  living  not  only  in 
last-year  houses  but  in  last-century  houses,  shells 
many  hundred  years  old,  and  that  the  Methodists, 
Baptists,  Universalists,  and  all  the  other  "ists"  have 
their  little  shells  in  which  they  are  sometimes  uncom- 
fortably crowded,  being  determined  to  stay  in  them 
because  they  were  once  good  places,  large,  roomy,  and 
beautiful,  and  they  are  afraid  that  it  is  cold  and  wild 
outside  and  they  will  never  get  other  places  as  good, 
you  will  understand  why  it  is  that  I  wanted  you  to 
get  clear  in  your  minds  the  difference  between 
"creed,"  as  used  by  the  churches,  and  conviction.  One 
is  the  belief  of  yesterday,  the  other  the  belief  of 
today;  one  is  a  last  year's  shell,  the  other  a  this 
year's  house;  one,  to  come  back  to  our  chambered 
Nautilus,  is  closed  up  in  front,  is  a  dead  cell;  the 
other  is  open  in  front,  ready  to  catch  fresh  breezes, 
note  changes,  and  welcome  new  growth.     This  is  why 


1 64  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

the  line  from  Holmes  is  a  worthy  motto  for  your 
class  and  a  fitting  climax  for  your  confirmation 
studies. 

And  now  are  we  ready  for  the  full  text  of  the  last 
stanza  ? 

Build  thee  more  stately  mansions,  O  my  soul, 

As    the    swift   season's    roll ! 

Leave    thy    low-vaulted    past ! 
Let  each  new  temple,  nobler  than  the  last, 
Shut  thee  from  heaven  with  a  dome  more  vast, 

Till  thou  at  lengh  art  free. 
Leaving  thine  outgrown  shell  by  life's   unresting  sea! 

How  shall  we  build  these  "more  stately  mansions," 
and  by  what  method  shall  we  make  each  new  "temple 
nobler  than  the  last?"  The  first  lesson  I  would  urge 
is  a  lesson  of  courage;  when  you  are  older  we  will 
call  it  "trust,"  when  in  the  glory  of  old  age  we  will 
call  it  "faith,"  but  all  these  words  mean  the  same 
thing;  they  all  mean  that  which  dares  because  it 
believes  there  are  better  things  farther  on.  Do  not 
be  foolish  enough  to  think  that  you  have  the  ocean  in 
your  little  pint  measure,  or  that  the  sky  has  come 
down  to  arch  your  little  cell  alone,  or  that  the  sun 
has  given  all  its  brightness  to  paint  your  little  pearl; 
beautiful  as  it  is,  there  is  more  pearl-stuff  left  outside. 

Believe  me,  life  and  growth,  to  you  as  to  this 
mollusk,  are  on  the  outer  line  of  being.  Keep  your 
minds  out  of  doors.  "There  are  new  truths  yet  to 
break  upon  you  from  God's  word,"  said  Parson  Rob- 
inson to  our  pilgrim  forefathers  as  they  were  about 


MORE  STATELY  MANSIONS  165 

to  sail  from  Leyden  to  Plymouth.  "The  continent  is 
farther  on,"  said  Columbus  to  his  discontented  sailors 
who  wanted  to  stop  and  hunt  for  land  when  they 
came  to  green  weeds  in  the  Sargasso  Sea.  "Forget- 
ting the  things  that  are  behind,  pressing  forward  to 
the  things  that  are  before,"  said  Paul.  These  are 
all  youth's  commissions  to  be  brave  in  the  search  for 
truth.  Have  courage,  my  dear  children!  Live  for 
the  future,  trust  it.  It  has  a  place  for  you,  a  work 
for  you  to  do,  a  house  for  you  to  live  in,  but  you 
must  build  it  like  the  Nautilus — of  earth,  air,  water, 
and  sunshine;  you  must  build  it  through  your  own 
nature,  out  of  the  secretions  of  your  own  being;  and 
as  to  the  empty  cells,  the  air-chambers  wherein  once 
the  living  creature  dwelt,  they  are  of  some  use  to  a  mol- 
lusk,  perhaps,  but  they  seem  to  be  of  less  use  as  life 
gets  along  into  higher  forms.  There  are  many  more 
chambered  cells  among  fossils  than  now  belong  to 
living  species.  There  are  things  which  are  useful, 
beautiful,  indispensable  one  day,  which  another  day 
may  find  as  useless  as  a  broken  eggshell  is  to  the 
chicken.  The  chief  thing  for  the  chicken  to  believe  in 
is  its  beak,  the  important  thing  to  trust  is  the  leg-and- 
wing  instinct ;  let  him  peck  away,  and,  when  the  time 
comes,  let  him  stretch  his  little  legs,  and  spread  his 
little  wings,  and  some  time  he  will  prove  that  through 
all  his  cramped  and  narrow  life  there  ran  a  holy 
meaning;  over  his  darkness,  loneliness,  and  apparent 
thrall  there  brooded  a  purpose,  a  providence,  a  love 
which  in  due  time  demonstrated  that  it  was  both  love 


1 66  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

and  wisdom.  A  friend  sent  me  the  other  day  some 
rhymes  of  a  Massachusetts  high-school  girl  seven- 
teen years  old.  I  thought  them  good  enough  to  print 
in  Unity,  and  I  give  them  to  you  to  close  my 
plea  for  courage  as  the  first  condition  of  growth. 

Three  long  weeks   had  the  mother  hen 
Sat   on    her    nest   in   the   hay; 
Now  she  turns  her  eggs  with  tender  care, 
For  the  chickens  will  hatch  today. 

Little  chick  in  the  egg  is  not  very  old, 

Of  course  he's  not  very  wise; 
And  he  views  what  little  life  he's  had, 

With  discontented  surprise. 

"Surely  this  is  not  my  proper  sphere ; 
I've   no   room   to   grow ! 
I,  a  chicken  with  wings  and  feet — 
To  be  cramped  in  a  hard  shell,  so ! 

"Of  what  possible  use  are  beak  and  eyes 
To  me,  doubled  up  like  a  ball? 
'Tis  torture  to  know  that  I  have  the  things 
When  I  cannot  use  them  at  all. 

"Never  was  any  creature,  I'm  sure, 
So  sorely  fettered  and  pressed." 
How  should  he  know   that  a  dozen  more 
Lay  under  his   mother's  breast? 

His   murmurings  end  with   a   lusty   peck 

At  the  shell  which  holds  him   fast, 
When  lo !   the  wondrous   light   breaks   in, 

And  he  finds  himself  free  at  last. 

Balancing  on   his   feeble  claws. 
He  gazes  above  and  below, — 


MORE  STATELY  MANSIONS  167 

"Was  it  for  such  a  world  as  this 

That  I  was  shut  up  to  grow?" 

..**-•■ 

He    nestled    under    his    mother's    wing, 

Thinking  little  enough,  I  ween. 
That  her  love  had  hovered  him  all  the  while 

With  only  a  shell  between. 

And  so,  dear  friends,  when  things  are  wrong, 

And  seem  to  go  ill — not  well ; 
Just  think  of  the  love  that  is  brooding  o'er  all 

And  wait  till  you've  chipped  your  shell. 

I  have  urged  upon  you  this  lesson  of  courage, 
because  I  am  not  afraid  it  will  lead  you  to  reckless- 
ness or  land  you  in  flippant  irreverence.  Would  you 
"build  more  stately  mansions"  for  the  soul,  you  must 
never  forget  that  your  little  bark  floats  in  an  infinite 
sea,  and  that  your  little  dome  is  built  out  of  measure- 
less sky-stuff  and  painted  with  the  long  and  swift 
pencils  of  light  shot  out  of  the  heart  of  the  central 
sun,  whose  brilliancy  dazzles  the  mind  as  it  does  the 
eye. 

Let  our  mansions  be  ever  domed  with  reverence. 
When  the  great  Agassiz  met  his  pupils  for  the  first 
time  on  the  island  of  Penikese,  in  that  great  summer- 
school,  where  they  were  to  study  the  mysteries  of  the 
beach,  the  marvels  of  land  and  water,  he  began  his 
work  by  asking  the  class  to  bow  their  heads  with  him 
in  reverent  awe  in  the  thought  of  the  mighty  source 
of  all  these  marvels,  the  Giver  of  life  and  all  its  teem- 
ing possibilities  of  thought.  The  poet  Whittier  has 
interpreted  this  occasion  to  us,  and  I  would  you  might 


l68  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

know  this  poem  well,  for  it  would,  perhaps,  help  you 
remember  that  never  were  stately  mansions  built  by 
the  undevout.  The  thought  of  the  philosopher,  as 
well  as  that  of  the  child,  ends  with  the  thought  of 
God. 

Said  the  Master  to  the  youth : 
"We  have  come  in  search  of  truth, 
Trying  with  uncertain  key 
Door   by   door   of   mystery; 
We  are  reaching,  through  His  laws, 
To  the  garment-hem  of  Cause, 
Him,    the   endless,    unbegun, 
The  Unnamable,  the  One 
Light  of  all  our  light  the  Source, 
Life   of   life,   and   Force   of    force. 
As  with  fingers  of  the  blind, 
We  are  groping  here  to   find 
What  the  hieroglyphics   mean 
Of  the  Unseen  in  the  seen, 
What    the    Thought    which   underlies 
Nature's    masking   and    disguise, 
What  it  is  that  hides  beneath 
Blight,    and   bloom    and   birth   and    death. 
By   past   efforts    unavailing, 
Doubt  and  error,  loss   and   failing. 
Of  our  weakness  made  aware, 
On  the  threshold  of  our  task 
Let  us  light  and  guidance  ask. 
Let  us  pause  in  silent  prayer!" 
Then  the  Master  in  his  place 
Bowed  his  head  a  little  space, 
And  the  leaves  by  soft  airs  stirred, 
Lapse    of    wave    and    cry    of    bird 
Left  the  solemn  hush  unbroken 


MORE  STATELY  MANSIONS  169 

Of  that  wordless  prayer  unspoken, 
While  its  wish,  on  earth  unsaid, 
Rose  to   heaven   interpreted.  , 
As,  in  life's  best  hours,  we  hear 
By  the  spirit's  finer  ear 
His  low  voice  within  us,  thus 
The  All-Father  heareth  us; 
And  his  holy  ear  we  pain 
With  our  noisy  words  and  vain. 
Not  for  Him  our  violence 
Storming  at  the  gates   of  sense; 
His  the  primal  language,  his 
The   eternal    silences  ! 

But  the  last  and  best  thing  I  have  to  say  about 
"building  a  more  stately  mansion"  is  what  the  life  of 
the  mollusk  never  reached.  He  builded  for  himself 
only;  but  a  stately  soul-mansion  must  be  builded  for 
service,  not  to  self  but  to  others.  My  dear  children, 
be  of  use  in  this  world,  and  its  infinite  resources  are 
at  your  disposal ;  be  selfish  and  mean,  and  the  world 
is  barren,  a  narrow,  stingy  place  that  withholds  from 
you  what  you  most  crave.  My  little  friend  Gus,  the 
boy  driver  in  the  pine  woods  of  Michigan,  bemoaned 
his  lack  of  education ;  he  had  never  got  beyond  the 
second  reader  in  school,  he  said.  But  when,  in  the 
pitchy  darkness  of  midnight,  the  horses  lost  their  way, 
struck  a  tree  and  broke  a  tug,  the  little  fourteen-year- 
old  boy  succeeded  in  taking  the  check-rein  from  one 
part  of  the  harness  and  repairing  the  damage  to  the 
other  part,  and  thus  we  were  enabled  to  continue  our 
way.     I  thought  he  had  an  education  which  many  a 


lyo  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

college  graduate  misses,  and  with  the  humble  tool  of 
service  he  was  all  unconsciously  building  a  statelier 
mansion  for  his  soul. 

One  day  as  Tamberlik,  a  famous  tenor,  was  walk- 
ing through  a  bird  market  at  Madrid,  he  suddenly 
stopped,  and,  for  a  bank  note  of  a  thousand  francs, 
or  about  two  hundred  dollars,  bought  up  the  entire 
twittering  colony.  He  then  opened  the  doors  of  the 
cages,  and  as  the  astonished  songsters  found  their 
wings  and  sought  their  home  in  the  air,  he  cried, 
"Go  and  be  free,  my  brothers!"  Edith  Thomas  has 
celebrated  this  act  in  song : 

Cage-door  is  open — sing! 

Pure  gladness !    fly   southward,   fly  northward, 
Each    one    in    your    turn    carry    spring, 

Faithful,    unbribed,    undelaying, 
Alike  to  peasant  and  king. 

Cage-door  is  open — fly  ! 

Whistler,   twitterer,   warbler, 
And  you  that  but  sob  or  cry, 

You,    the    slumber-smooth    ringdove, 
Out,  to  the  sun  and  the  sky! 

It  is  not  birds  alone  that  are  doomed  to  live  in 
cages,  and  not  all  cages  are  made  of  iron  wires.  The 
human  soul  finds  its  saddest  imprisonment  when  it  is 
helpless  in  the  presence  of  cruelty,  when  it  cannot 
right  a  wrong.  It  finds  its  highest  freedom  when  it 
can  secure  justice  to  others. 

A  poor  woman  was  dying  a  miserable  death  in  her 
miserable  little  room  on  the  top  floor  of  a  big  tene- 


MORE  STATELY  MANSIONS  I71 

ment  house  in  the  city  of  New  York,  when  a  good 
Methodist  missionary  woman  found  her  and  sought 
to  help  her.  But  the  dying  woman  said,  "My  time 
is  short.  I  ask  for  nothing  for  myself,  but  I  can- 
not die  in  peace  while  a  miserable  little  child  is  being 
cruelly  beaten  night  and  day  in  the  next  room.  I 
have  been  hearing  her  screams  for  months."  The 
missionary  tried  to  secure  justice  to  the  child,  but 
twenty  years  ago  in  New  York  City  there  were  no 
laws  under  which  such  a  case  could  be  brought  to 
court.  The  police  said,  "It  is  a  dangerous  thing  to 
interfere  between  parent  and  child."  As  a  last  resort 
the  missionary  appealed  to  Henry  Bergh,  the  holy 
man  who  befriended  the  dog,  the  horse,  and  all 
dumb  animals.  He  said,  "The  child  is  an  animal.  It 
shall  have  the  rights  of  the  stray  cur  in  the  streets;" 
and  the  starved,  half-naked,  and  bruised  little  girl 
was  brought  into  court  wrapped  in  a  horse-blanket. 
A  cry  of  horror  went  through  the  city  of  New  York. 
Little  Mary  Ellen  was  rescued,  and  became  a 
farmer's  happy  wife  in  central  New  York.  Jacob 
Riis  tells  this  story  in  The  Children  of  the  Poor,  as 
the  origin  of  the  formation  of  the  Society  for  the 
Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Children,  which,  under  one 
form  or  another,  now  exists  in  nearly  all  the  great 
cities  of  Europe  and  America.  How  happy  and  glori- 
ous was  the  death  of  the  poor  consumptive  woman  in 
the  tenement  house!  How  stately  a  mansion  did 
that  soul  create  for  itself ! 

Any   act  that   serves,   whether   it   be  mending   a 


172  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

broken  tug,  giving  a  bird  its  freedom,  or  standing 
between  a  little  child  and  its  wrongs,  suggests  the 
highest  art  of  mansion-making. 

Courage,  reverence,  helpfulness,  these  are  the 
three  simple  rules  of  the  character-builder. 

Dear  children,  we  have  had  good  times  together 
over  high  themes;  we  have  tasted  the  sweets  of 
thought,  the  fellowship  of  free  minds,  the  communion 
of  love.  I  pray  that  your  lives  may  bring  you  much 
health,  prosperity,  and  peace.  For  these  we  dare  not 
always  hope,  but  we  can  so  live  that  each  day  may 
find  us  dwelling  in  a  "new  temple,  nobler  than  the 
last."  Live  on  the  front  line.  Fear  not  the  out-of- 
doors  of  God  when  the  mind  is  crowded  on  the 
inside.  Give  your  minds  room  to  think  great  things; 
give  your  hearts  room  to  love  high  things,  nay,  to 
love  low  things,  to  love  everything;  give  your  wills 
and  consciences  room  to  do  true  things,  and  you 
will  always  dwell  in  noble  mansions.  Build,  build, 
build!  Not  for  time,  but  for  eternity!  Build  out  of 
thoughts  and  loves  the  holy  temple  of  usefulness,  and 
your  little  temples  will  become  sacred  chapels,  altar 
places  in  the  infinite  temple  of  God,  "the  house  not 
made  with  hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens,"  in  which 
you  may  dwell  forever.    Amen. 


INTO    THE    LIGHT 


THE   TABLES    TURNED 

Up!  up!  my  Friend,  and  quit  your  hooks; 
Or  surely  you'll  grow  double: 
Up!  up!  my  Friend,  and  clear  your  looks; 
Why  all  this  toil  and  trouble? 

The  sun,  above  the  mountain's  head, 

A  freshening  lustre  mellow 

Through  all  the  long  green  fields  has  spread. 

His  first  sweet  evening  yellow. 

Books!    't  is  a  dull  and  endless  strife: 
Come,  hear  the  woodland  linnet. 
How  sweet  his  music!  on  my  life. 
There's  more   of  wisdom  in  it. 

And  hark!  how  blithe  the  throstle  sings! 
He,  too,  is  no  mean  preacher: 
Come  forth  into  the  light  of  things, 
Let  Nature  be  your  teacher. 

She  has  a  world  of  ready  wealth, 
Our  minds  and  hearts  to  bless — 
Spontaneous  wisdom  breathed  by  health. 
Truth  breathed  by  cheerfulness. 

One  impulse  from  a  vernal  wood 
May  teach  you  more  of  man, 
Of  moral  evil  and  of  good. 
Than  all  the  sages  can. 

Sweet  is  the  lore  which  Nature  brings; 
Our   meddling   intellect 

Mis-shapes   the   beauteous  forms   of  things: 
We  murder  to  dissect. 

Enough  of  Science  and  of  Art; 
Close  up   those  barren   leaves; 
Come  forth,  and  bring  with  you  a  heart 
That  zvatches  and  receives. 

— William    Wordsworth 


X 

INTO  THE  LIGHT 

Come   forth    into    the    light    of    things, 
Let  Nature  be  your  teacher. 

— Wordsworth 

There  are  three  ways  in  which  men  have  esti- 
mated nature.  According  to  the  first  way,  it  was 
regarded  as  an  enemy,  antagonistic  to  the  higher  Hfe 
of  man,  a  snare  to  entrap  the  soul,  a  force  to  be 
resented,  with  interests  ahen  to  those  of  the  spirit. 
This  view  makes  it  the  business  of  rehgion  to  get 
away  from  nature  as  soon  as  possible.  It  led  the 
devotee  into  the  anchorite's  cell.  It  produced  the 
piety  which  sought  caves  and  deserts,  and  it  encour- 
aged the  flagellants  to  torture  the  flesh.  This  view  of 
nature  looked  upon  the  world  as  accursed,  God-for- 
saken, devil-possessed.  It  taught  that  the  bodies  we 
occupy  are  prison-houses  of  the  soul,  ever  pulling  it 
downward,  entangling  the  spirit,  endangering  its 
future,  and  polluting  its  present.  This  estimate 
springs  from  the  thought  that  God  is  far  off,  that 
heaven  is  in  some  other  realm,  that  the  spirit  receives 
its  illumination  and  revelation  through  miracle. 

The  story  of  Adam  and  Eve  in  Eden  seemed  to 
justify  this  estimate:  Once  the  world  was  beautiful 
and  holy,  but  the  serpent  came  into  it  and  tempted 
Eve,  and  she  did  eat  of  the  forbidden  fruit  and  give 
it  to  Adam  to  eat.  And  for  this  the  world  was  cursed ; 

I7S 


176  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

thorns  were  put  upon  the  rose;  briars  grew  in  the 
fields  that  henceforth  yielded  reluctantly  her  grains 
and  her  fruits  and  from  which  man  must  win  his 
bread  by  toil  and  sweat. 

A  second  estimate  of  nature  regards  it  with 
indifference  except  as  a  storehouse  of  material  com- 
forts. According  to  this  estimate,  nature  is  a  cup- 
board from  which  we  draw  with  more  or  less  suc- 
cess the  necessities  of  life.  A  pine  tree  is  so  many 
thousand  shingles  in  possibility;  an  oak  suggests  a 
certain  number  of  feet  of  building  timber;  a  prairie, 
the  possibility  of  so  many'  bushels  of  corn  per  acre. 
Land  is  divided  into  two  kinds,  useful  and  useless; 
the  first  is  to  be  cut  up  into  farms;  the  latter  tempts 
the  invention,  and  men  try  to  find  some  use  for  it. 
Here  in  Chicago,  men  organize  their  Calumet  clubs 
to  secure  control  of  thousands  of  acres  of  what  they 
call  waste  land,  in  order  that  they  may  control  the 
fishing  and  the  shooting  thereon.  The  Calumet 
swamps  and  the  Kankakee  marshes  are  of  use  because 
they  harbor  wild  ducks  and  make  good  shooting- 
ground.  This  estimate  of  nature  is  the  estimate  of 
ignorance,  the  estimate  of  business,  the  estimate 
which  measures  life  by  its  possessions,  by  dollars  and 
cents. 

The    third    estimate    of    nature    regards    it    as    a 
friend,    beautiful,    inspiring,    exhaustless.      It    looks 
upon  nature  as  the  teacher  of  mind,  the  wonder-home 
of  man,  the  house  of  God,  exhaustless  in  its  bounty,, 
the   great   book   of   revelation   ordered   and   orderly. 


INTO  THE  LIGHT  I77 

This  is  the  view  of  poetry,  of  science,  and  of  art. 
This  is  the  view  of  universal  reHgion,  which  regards 
God  as  the  hfe  of  the  universe,  the  hght  of  history, 
the  love  in  all  our  loves,  the  joy  in  all  our  joys.  It  is 
this  view  of  nature  that  brings  cheer  to  the  discour- 
aged, inspiration  to  the  student,  patience  to  the  toiler, 
glad  trustfulness  to  all.  It  led  Jesus  to  find  God's 
revelation  in  the  lilies  of  the  field  and  to  discover  the 
parables  of  the  higher  life  by  the  roadside,  in  the 
fields,  and  on  the  beach. 

But  this  view  of  nature  is  in  the  main  a  modern 
view.  It  has  remained  for  these  later  centuries  of 
the  world's  history  to  teach  men  what  a  friend  they 
have  in  nature,  how  comforting  are  her  ways.  And 
the  two  great  aids  in  this  direction  have  been  art 
and  science.  When  Millet,  that  brave  French  peasant 
painter,  was  borne  down  with  care  and  anxiety,  his 
great  heart  toiling  to  teach  reluctant  eyes  to  see 
beauty  in  things  near,  poetry  in  the  beauties  of  the 
field  and  the  home,  he  exclaimed,  "Come,  let  us  go 
and  see  the  sunset;  it  will  make  me  feel  less  forlorn." 
There  is  a  beautiful  story  told  of  the  great  Ole  Bull 
when  he  was  stretched  on  his  bed  of  pain  and  life  was 
ebbing  away.  He  was  too  sick  to  speak,  but  his 
friends  saw  that  he  wanted  something.  They 
brought  him  his  favorite  violin,  his  diamonded  bow, 
the  crown  of  gold  he  had  won.  To  all  these  he  shook 
his  head,  but  when  someone  wiser  than  the  others 
brought  him  a  handful  of  heather  from  the  hillside, 
he   smiled   and   pressed   it   to   his   bosom,    and   was 


178  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

soothed  and  comforted.  This  great  master  of  art 
died  a  loving  child  of  nature,  pressing  to  his  bosom 
one  of  its  most  familiar  flowers. 

Poetry  has  done  much  in  these  days  to  help  us  to 
an  appreciation  of  what  is  best  in  nature.  I  dare  not 
begin  to  quote  from  the  great  measures  of  Shakes- 
peare and  Goethe,  of  Wordsworth  and  Emerson, 
Tennyson  and  Longfellow,  Whittier  and  Bryant,  for 
the  delightful  task  would  tempt  me  too  far  away 
from  my  purpose.  But  all  of  them  say  in  ever  vary- 
ing notes, 

Come    forth    into   the   light   of   things, 

Let  Nature  be  your  teacher. 

And  what  a  beautiful  story  is  that  of  the  heroes 
of  science,  of  the  men  enamored  of  nature.  How 
brave  and  tender,  how  diligent  and  joyous  the  lives  of 
those  who  have  accepted  nature's  invitation  and  gone 
"forth  into  the  light  of  things."  Brave  Columbus 
sailing  unknown  seas  in  search  of  hidden  continents; 
Von  Humboldt  climbing  the  solitudes  of  the  Andes; 
Livingstone  penetrating  the  depths  of  unexplored  con- 
tinents ;  Darwin  sailing  amid  tropic  seas  in  the 
"Beagle,"  studying  coral  and  mollusk;  Agassiz 
exploring  the  tropic  glories  of  the  Amazon  or  bat- 
tling with  the  Alpine  glaciers;  not  to  mention  the 
names  of  those  who  have  found  great  peace  in  study- 
ing the  midnight  stars  in  the  solitude  of  fireless  obser- 
vatories, or  those  other  devotees  of  the  lens  who,  by 
means  of  the  microscope,  explore  the  palaces  of  little- 
ness and   study  the  inhabitants  of  a   raindrop.     To 


INTO  THE  LIGHT  179 

think  of  Wallace,  Proctor,  Huxley,  and  Tyndall,  of 
Pasteur  and  Koch,  is  to  enlarge  one's  mind,  clear  one's 
vision,  warm  one's  heart,  ennoble  the  ideals  of  life, 
because  all  of  these  went  "forth  into  the  light  of 
things;"  they  accepted  nature  as  a  teacher,  and  it 
made  them  not  only  wise  but  noble.  It  gave  them  not 
only  skill  of  intellect  but  warmth  of  heart.  In  seek- 
ing truth  they  learned  to  serve  the  right  also,  and  in 
becoming  wise  they  grew  loyal. 

Dear  friends,  it  is  well  to  know  much  of  books,  to 
master  foreign  languages,  to  study  remote  ages,  and, 
when  possible,  to  travel  into  foreign  lands.  I  wish 
you  might  all  sail  up  the  Nile,  visit  Palestine,  and  sit 
amid  the  ruins  of  Persepolis,  but  these  are  privileges 
which  come  to  only  a  few.  So  it  is  well  to  remember 
that  the  lapping  waves  of  Lake  Michigan  murmur  the 
same  gospel  that  the  "ripple-wash  of  Galilee"  taught 
Jesus.  The  rose  of  Illinois  reflects  the  same  glory 
as  the  rose  of  Sharon.  The  same  sun  rose  over  Chi- 
cago this  morning  that  shone  upon  Jerusalem  when 
the  name  of  Solomon  made  it  famous  and  glorious. 
Aye,  the  little  sparrow  on  your  housetop,  held  more 
cheaply  than  the  sparrow  of  Judea,  two  of  which 
were  sold  for  a  farthing,  may,  if  your  heart  is  not 
hardened,  testify  to  the  same  inclusive  power  and 
love  that  numbers  the  hairs  of  your  head. 

It  is  well  to  read  the  charming  books  of  Thoreau 
and  John  Burroughs,  for  they  tell  much  about  the 
robins,  the  squirrels,  the  buttercups,  and  the  clouds. 
But  it  is  a  great  deal  better  to  do  what  Henry  Thor- 


i8o  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

eau  and  John  Burroughs  did ;  go  and  interview  the 
robins  for  yourselves,  note  the  habits  of  the  thrush 
and  the  woodpecker  as  they  did,  cultivate  the  squir- 
rels, and  learn  of  the  pine  cones  as  they  did. 

Henry  Thoreau  noted  in  his  diary  from  year  to 
year  the  first  day  of  spring  on  which  he  could  lay  off 
his  coat.  In  1854  it  was  on  April  5.  On  that  day  he 
noticed  a  buff-edged  butterfly  and  hawks  flying  over 
the  meadow,  and,  he  adds,  "Hark!  while  I  was  writ- 
ing down  that  field  note,  the  shrill  peep  of  the  hylodes 
was  borne  to  me  from  afar  through  the  woods."  On 
the  same  date  nine  years  afterward,  the  tree  spar- 
rows and  the  pewees  were  heard.  One  day  later  in 
the  year  1853  he  wrote:  "One  cowslip  shows  the 
yellow,  though  it  is  not  fairly  out  but  will  be  by 
tomorrow.  How  they  improve  their  time.  Not  a 
moment  of  sunshine  is  lost.  One  thing  I  may  depend 
on :  there  has  been  no  idling  with  the  flowers ;  nature 
loses  not  a  moment,  takes  no  vacation.  They  advance 
as  steadily  as  a  clock."  And  so  on  through  the  year 
he  went  with  his  eyes  open,  his  ears  alert,  and  the 
fine  sense  of  touch  open  at  every  pore  to  the  benign 
invasion  of  God,  who  came  to  him  with  his  message 
of  peace,  riding  on  the  rays  of  light ;  who 
spoke  to  him  his  gospel  of  progress  in  the 
never- failing  seasons ;  who  preached  to  him  a 
religion  of  independence  in  the  saucv  bark  of 
the  squirrel.  He  worshiped  in  the  great  Saint  Peter's 
of  nature,  the  sacred  cathedral  we  call  "out  of  doors." 
domed  by  the  sky,  illumined  by  the  stars,  an  architec- 


INTO  THE  LIGHT  l8l 

ture  compared  with  which  the  great  triumph  of 
Angelo,  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  is  but  a 
bubble. 

Let  me  be  a  Httle  more  specific.  What  are  the 
lessons  which  nature  teaches  us  when  we  come  "into 
the  light  of  things?"  At  least  she  teaches  us  the  high 
lesson  of  regularity.  The  preachers  talk  about 
"faith"  until  sometimes  the  listeners  lose  patience 
and  say,  "Faith  in  what  ?  What  can  we  trust  in  these 
days  when  everything  is  being  doubted?  How  can 
we  know  what  is  true,  or  what  to  believe?  All  the 
great  fundamentals  of  religion,  so  called,  seem  to  be 
in  question.  The  preachers  themselves  are  in  dispute. 
The  denominations  are  full  of  heretics.  Heresy  is  in 
the  air.  Not  'faith'  but  doubt  seems  to  be  every- 
where. We  can  be  certain  of  nothing." 
Come  forth  into  the  light  of  things, 
Let  Nature  be  your  teacher, 

and  you  may  at  least  be  certain  that  the  sun  is  shining 
somewhere;  you  will  look  for  it  in  the  east  every 
morning,  and  you  will  set  your  watches  by  it  when  it 
comes.  You  may  always  know  where  to  look  for  the 
North  Star.  You  know  on  which  trees  to  expect 
the  apples,  and  you  know  that  pumpkins  do  not  grow 
on  oak  trees  or  acorns  on  pumpkin  vines.  In  short, 
you  know  that  nature  works  in  an  ordered  way,  that 
you  live  in  a  world  governed  by  law,  that  your  life  is 
cradled  in  law,  that  birth  and  death  are  alike  produced 
by  law,  that  there  is  a  cause  for  every  effect,  that  one 
thing  is  related  to  all  things,  or,  as  Emerson  says. 


1 82  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

A  subtle  chain  of  countless   rings 
The  next  unto  the  farthest  brings. 

And  more  than  this,  when  you  "come  forth  into 
the  hght  of  things,"  you  see  that  this  order  is  a  grow- 
ing one.  Nature  is  not  a  finished  cabinet  of  curios 
put  away  on  shelves  where  they  will  always  stay,  but 
it  is  a  procession,  a  moving  column;  a  great  army; 
there  is  a  place  for  colonel,  captain,  and  corporal,  and 
every  private  has  his  place  in  the  ranks,  and,  best  of 
all,  the  column  is  moving.  Nature  is  marching  on. 
It  is  going  somewhere.  To  change  the  figure,  nature 
is  a  great  river  flowing  onward,  yes,  "onward"  is 
the  word.     Nature  is  improving. 

John  Fiske  says  of  the  early  Jurassic  period : 
The  real  lords  of  creation  were  the  giant  reptiles  stalking 
over  the  earth,  splashing  through  the  sea,  and  flying  on  swift 
bat-like  wings  overhead.  The  Iguanodon,  from  fifty  to  seventy 
feet  in  length,  was  supposed  to  be  the  largest,  but  Professor 
Marsh  has  discovered  the  Atlantosaurus  of  Colorado,  nearly 
one  hundred  feet  in  length  and  thirty  feet  in  height,  the  largest 
animal  yet  known. 

But  all  those  clumsy  giants  are  gone,  and  in  their 
stead  have  come  nimble  squirrels,  beautiful  thrushes, 
intelligent  boys  and  girls.  Fancy  a  squirrel  teasing 
and  shaming  an  Iguanodon,  and  telling  him  there 
is  no  virtue  in  size;  that  not  bigness  but  adaptation  is 
valual)le. 

What  has  happened  in  the  animal  world  has  hap- 
pened in  the  world  of  plants  and  in  human  history. 
The  pippin  was  once  a  crab  apple.     Shakespeare  and 


INTO  THE  LIGHT  183 

Emerson  have  descended  from  ancestors  as  low  as  the 
Hottentot  and  as  savage  as  the  Indian.  The  world  is 
growing  finer,  and  mankind  is  getting  better.  "Come 
forth  into  the  light  of  things,"  and  nature  will  teach 
you  that  progress  is  a  part  of  her  order,  development 
her  method,  evolution  her  motto. 

Again  in  the  light  of  things,  we  are  taught  the 
lesson  of  patience.  Nature  is  diligent  but  never 
hasty.  She  is  persistent,  but  never  impatient. 
She  has  been  at  work  for  a  long  time,  and 
there  is  every  indication  that  she  will  continue  for  a 
long  time  to  come.  The  old-fashioned  books  used  to 
tell  us  that  the  world  was  created  about  six  thousand 
years  ago,  but  in  the  "light  of  things"  we  see  that  six 
thousand  years  is  but  a  tick  of  the  clock.  That 
clumsy  Iguanodon,  sixty  feet  long,  lived  before  the 
mammals  appeared  on  the  earth,  and  the  mammals  go 
back  only  about  one-twentieth  of  the  period  in  which 
there  are  fossil  evidences  of  life  upon  the  earth.  Sir 
William  Thompson  has  estimated  that  this  solid  earth 
of  ours,  once  a  fiery  mass  of  vapor,  has  been  solidify- 
ing for  perhaps  four  hundred  million  years,  and  that 
vegetable  and  animal  life  have  been  on  the  earth  from 
one  to  two  hundred  million  years.  Perhaps  man  has 
been  on  the  earth  from  one  to  two  million  years.  All 
this  time  he  has  been  learning  his  lesson  slowly,  very 
slowly,  but  very  surely. 

A  million  years!  Mr.  Croll,  a  clever  student  of 
nature,  has  tried  to  help  us  to  some  idea  of  the  extent 
of  a  million  years.     This  is  his  illustration :     Take  a 


184  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

strip  of  paper  eighty-three  feet  and  four  inches  in 
length,  and  mark  off  one  tenth  of  an  inch  on  the  end 
of  this  strip  to  represent  a  hundred  years;  the  whole 
strip  will  represent  a  million  years,  and  one  tenth  of 
an  inch  will  count  a  hundred  years  in  that  space. 
Mark  off  your  own  age  in  that  inch-space  and  see 
how  short  is  your  life  in  this  long  story.  Nature  is 
deliberate.  She  has  taken  a  long  while  to  accomplish 
her  task.  It  is  believed  that  there  are  trees  in  India 
still  alive  that  were  growing  when  Buddha  went 
about  teaching  gentleness  and  it  is  quite  probable  that 
there  are  cedars  in  Palestine  that  are  as  old  as  Jesus. 
In  the  light  of  things  we  grow  patient. 

Again,  all  this  order,  progress,  and  patience  are 
somehow  allied  with  beauty.  Nature  loves  color. 
The  rose  is  the  child  of  her  bosom,  the  lily  the  pride 
of  her  garden.  Starlight  and  daisy  woo  us  into  the 
palace  beautiful,  and  the  palace  beautiful  abounds  in 
cheerful  song.  There  is  a  blending  of  notes  as  there 
is  of  color  in  nature.  Nature  soothes  us,  sings  to  us. 
makes  us  laugh.  Primitive  man  was  morose,  gloomy ; 
civilized  man  is  sunny,  happy.  Smiles  go  with  intel- 
ligence; genial  laughter  is  the  fruit  of  culture. 

The  older  books,  like  the  earlier  science,  were 
much  given  to  classification,  and  ignorant  people  are 
still  very  anxious  about  their  labels.  There  is  a  silly 
curiosity  as  to  what  church,  creed,  or  race  the 
stranger  may  belong  to,  as  if  knowing  these  you  would 
know  the  man.  "Come  forth  into  the  light  of 
things,"  and  learn  that  variety  is  the  law  of  nature. 


INTO  THE  LIGHT  185 

Even  the  flowers  baffle  the  classifying  botanist. 
Nature  teaches  us  that  no  two  leaves  on  the  tree  are 
alike.  There  is  not  a  grain  of  sand  but  has  an  indi- 
viduality all  its  own.  How  much  more  must  every 
soul  be  itself,  unlike  every  other  self! 

Amber  is  the  fossil  gum  of  a  tree  that  grew  away 
back  in  the  earlier  eras  of  the  tertiary  period,  before 
mammals  were.  A  German  entomologist  has  made  a 
collection  of  insects  that  have  been  preserved  to  us  in 
this  gum  where  they  stuck  when  they  foolishly  went 
to  it  for  a  sweet  sip  millions  of  years  ago.  Here  are 
gnats,  mites,  mosquitoes,  sucking  flies  of  great  variety, 
in  all  eight  hundred  and  twenty  different  kinds  of 
insects.  Only  thirty  of  these  kinds  are  now  found  in 
Europe;  about  a  hundred  of  them  are  found  in 
America;  not  one  is  found  in  Africa.  Much  of  this 
amber  is  found  in  comparatively  small  districts  of 
Asia  Minor.  If  nature  delighted  in  making  such  a 
variety  of  flies  several  million  years  ago,  you  may 
be  sure  she  has  not  lost  her  passion  for  diversity  or 
the  trick  of  variation.  If  there  are  such  varieties  in  flies 
why  should  there  not  be  greater  varieties  in  human 
souls  ?  Why  should  you  care  to  think,  act,  or  believe 
like  another?  "Come  forth  into  the  light  of  things," 
think,  act,  and  believe  according  to  the  guidance  of 
your  own  nature.  Be  true  to  yourself;  beware  of 
uniforms;  nature  has  little  use  for  them.  Harmony 
is  not  uniformity,  but  the  blending  of  diversity. 
Beauty  rests  in  variety. 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  certainties  of  nature,  the 


i86  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

blessed  realities  of  natural  religion.  We  have 
learned  in  the  light  of  things  to  believe  in  law,  in 
progress,  to  work  patiently  for  beauty,  which  blooms 
more  and  more  into  variety.  We  began  in  law,  we 
end  in  freedom.  We  began  with  things,  we  end  with 
spirit.  Patience  is  no  longer  endurance,  but  inspira- 
tion. For  the  last  and  dearest  lesson  of  it  all  is  that 
we  are  a  part  of  this  order.  The  noblest  thing  in 
nature  is  human  nature.  The  highest  work  of  the 
God  of  nature  is  that  which  he  accomplishes  through 
the  human  hand,  the  matchless  mechanism  of  nature; 
through  the  human  heart,  the  divinest  love  in  nature; 
through  the  human  mind,  the  most  Godlike  power 
that  we  can  study  in  nature.  Emerson  tells  us  that 
the  earth  "wears  the  Parthenon  as  the  best  gem  upon 
her  zone,"  that  the  morning  "welcomes  the  pyra- 
mids," and  that  the  English  abbeys  belong  to  nature 
as  do  the  Andes  and  Ararat.  There  is  no  break 
between  the  violet  and  the  Christ-child,  between 
mother  robin  and  Mother  Mary. 

Royal  man  is  not  only  a  god  to  his  dog,  but  he  is 
regal  in  the  realms  of  nature.  For  him  the  lightning 
runs  on  errands,  for  him  fire  preserves  and  protects 
what  it  once  destroyed.  Man  reduces  the  thorn  and 
increases  the  rose;  he  prunes  the  vine,  enriches  the 
grape;  he  plows  up  the  sod,  and  raises  wheat  where 
weeds  flourished.  He  destroys  the  forest  and  builds 
a  city,  makes  a  shepherd  dog  out  of  a  wolf,  a  friend 
out  of  the  lion,  catches  the  note  of  the  mocking-bird, 
and   reproduces  it  on  the  violin  with  improvements 


INTO  THE  LIGHT  187 

and  variations.  What  is  the  skylark  compared  to 
Patti  as  a  member  of  nature's  orchestra? 

"Come  forth  into  the  Hght  of  things,"  and  realize 
how  bountiful  nature  is  toward  mind;  how  she  dotes 
on  a  loving  soul,  opens  up  her  innermost  cabinets,  and 
gives  him  her  choicest  secrets. 

A  few  years  ago  the  city  of  Memphis  was  contin- 
ually threatened  with  pestilence  on  account  of  the 
meager  quantity  and  inferior  quality  of  the  water. 
Its  citizens  communed  more  closely  with  nature.  The 
man  of  science  bade  them  bore  their  wells  deeper. 
Down  they  went  through  gravel  and  clay,  through 
the  bad  water  of  surface  and  sewage,  through  the 
clay  waterproof  cap  hundreds  of  feet  down,  and  lo! 
they  touched  exhaustless  cisterns  of  purest  water, 
which  hurried  into  every  hydrant  and  every  house  in 
the  city  that  would  give  it  admission. 

So  is  it  everywhere  in  regard  to  all  the  needs  of 
man.  Nature  is  as  bountiful  as  she  is  beautiful,  as 
generous  as  she  is  exacting.  A  quart  of  water  a  day 
will  satisfy  the  needs  of  a  savage.  A  civilized  man 
living  in  the  country,  needs  for  domestic  uses  from 
fifteen  to  twenty  gallons  per  day.  In  the  city,  with  its 
complex  needs  for  manufacturing  purposes,  street- 
cleaning,  park  fountains,  and  extinguishing  fires, 
sixty  gallons  a  day  for  each  person  is  the  estimate. 
Where  nature  seems  most  hungry  and  thirsty,  she  is 
only  waiting  for  the  intelligent  prayer  of  man  to 
enable  her  to  meet  his  wants. 

Nature  conspires   for  the  triumph  of  excellence. 


i88  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Nature  begins  by  pleading  with  us  for  the  open  mind ; 
she  ends  by  helping  us  to  the  joyous  and  enthusiastic 
life.  The  true  in  science  is  the  good  in  religion.  The 
tints  of  the  rose  call  for  virtue  in  the  maiden.  The 
stalwartness  of  the  pine  demands  its  counterpart  in 
the  integrity  of  the  boy.  As  the  meadows  yield  grass, 
so  society  should  yield  grace. 

Men  used  to  teach,  perhaps  they  do  yet  in  some 
places,  of  a  fallen  race,  of  corrupt  human  nature, 
total  depravity,  eternal  hell,  a  man-cursing  devil,  and 
a  God  of  wrath  and  vengeance,  but  you  have  escaped 
such  hurting  thoughts.  Go  out  of  doors,  be  it  day 
or  night,  clear  weather  or  cloudy,  sunlight  or  star- 
light, they  all  alike  deny  the  black  theology  and 
reaffirm  the  ethical  dignity  of  nature,  the  moral 
sanctity  of  human  nature.  Atom  and  planet,  cell  and 
cathedral,  alike  preach  the  cheerful  gospel  that  the 
God  of  nature  is  law  and  this  law  is  love.  In  this 
law  his  creatures  find  liberty  and  not  tyranny.  When 
men  would  teach  you  to  seek  in  a  far-off  past  for  a 
golden  age  of  peace  and  purity,  or  in  a  far-off  future 
in  some  cloudy  realm  beyond  death  a  heaven  where 
alone  love  is  dominant,  virtue  possible,  and  joy  a 
reality,  go  out  "into  the  light  of  things"  where  you 
will  find  that  here  and  now,  "all  is  harmonious,  united, 
and  fair."  The  bird  on  her  nest  crooning  to  her  mate 
on  the  bough  is  a  better  and  safer  teacher. 

Believe  that  the  love-life  in  your  own  heart,  mak- 
ing melodious  your  silent  moments,  making  calni 
your  most  toilful  hours,  making  your  burden-bearing 


INTO  THE  LIGHT  189 

joyful,  is  God's  life  in  your  soul,  and  that  the  call  to 
duty,  the  thirst  for  usefulness,  the  passion  to  serve 
which  rises  in  your  heart  as  you  stand  on  the  thresh- 
old of  life  with  the  morning  sunrise  upon  your 
brow,  is  God's  voice  within  seeking  to  accord  with 
God's  voice  without,  thus  bringing  about  that  higher 
harmony  between  the  human  nature  in  man  and  the 
God  of  and  in  nature.  To  you  as  to  Wordsworth, 
now  as  then  and  always, 

One   impulse   from   a  vernal   wood 

May  teach  you  more  of  man, 
Of  moral  evil  and  of  good, 

Than  all  the  sages  can. 

But  the  "vernal  wood"  is  no  more  nature's  field 
than  are  the  evergreen  fields  of  literature,  the  forest 
solemnities  of  history,  the  mountain  peaks  of  genius 
when  they  are  allied  to  nature's  forces.  Beware  how 
you  force  an  antagonism  between  nature  without  and 
nature  within.  Emerson  saw  more  clearly  than 
Wordsworth  the  identity  of  matter  and  mind.  Body 
and  soul  are  allied,  united  in  the  sanctity  of  being. 
An  indignity  to  one  is  an  indignity  to  the  other.  A 
joy  to  the  one  is  a  joy  to  the  other.  Let  us  treat  both 
as  sacred  from  the  hand  of  God,  and  go  forth  into  life 
sustained  by  the  religion  of  nature,  the  immutable  law 
which  is  unfailing  love,  unceasing  progress  through 
the  measureless  ages  of  eternity,  beauty  ripening  into 
duty,  variety  into  freedom,  and  all  into  character, 
realized  by  the  open  mind  and  the  devoted  life. 


LITTLE  CANDLES 


Like  the  beacon  lights  in  harbors,  which,  kindling  a  great 
blase  by  means  of  a  few  fagots,  afford  sufficient  aid  to  vessels 
that  wander  over  the  sea,  so,  also,  a  man  of  bright  character 
in  a  storm-tossed  city,  himself  content  with  little,  effects  great 
blessings  for  his  fellow-citizens. 

— Epictetus 


XI 

LITTLE  CANDLES 

How  far  that  little  candle  throws  his  beams! 
.    So  shines  a  good  deed  in  a  naughty  world. 

— Shakespeare 

A  pretty  text  chosen  from  a  pretty  story  daintily 
told  by  the  greatest  of  poets.  Portia,  the  heroine  of 
Shakespeare's  drama,  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  gentle 
as  she  was  wise,  loving  as  she  was  brave,  tender  as 
she  was  strong,  approaches  her  palace  in  the  dead  of 
midnight,  at  the  end  of  a  long  walk  with  her  com- 
panions, and  as  she  discovers  the  light  burning  in  the 
window  of  her  hall,  she  exclaims. 

How    far  that   little  candle   throws   his   beams ! 

So  shines  a  good  deed  in  a  naughty  world. 

How  far  a  little  light  penetrates  the  darkness !  A 
tallow  candle  no  bigger  than  my  finger  has  thrown  its 
ray  through  storm  and  darkness  many  a  time  from  the 
window  of  a  prairie  cottage,  a  sod  cabin  in  Nebraska, 
or  a  pine  shanty  in  Dakota  to  cheer  the  heart  of  the 
belated  traveler  a  mile  away.  How  far  a  little  light 
goes,  and  how  welcome  a  thing  is  a  light  in  darkness, 
a  light  that  shows  where  life  is,  where  love  is! 

Let  us  travel  from  our  text  toward  our  sermon. 
In  one  way  this  story  of  The  Merchant  of  Venice  is 
itself  a  little  candle.  It  would  make  a  book  of  only 
about  fifty  pages.  One  can  read  it  through  in  two 
hours.     It  was  written  about  three  hundred  years  ago. 

193 


194  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

How  much  trouble  and  noise,  pain,  sickness,  sorrow, 
and  death  has  the  world  seen  during  these  three 
hundred  years!  Since  these  lines  were  written,  the 
"Mayflower"  landed  at  Plymouth  Rock;  the  Pil- 
grims wrestled  with  the  rugged  soil  of  New  England ; 
Miles  Standish  had  his  battles  with  wild  Indians; 
witches  were  hanged  at  Salem  farms;  Boston  patriots 
threw  English  tea  into  the  harbor  rather  than  submit 
to  unjust  taxation;  the  seven-year  war  of  the  Revo- 
lution followed;  Washington  spent  the  dreary  winter 
at  Valley  Forge,  and  made  the  perilous  voyage  amid 
the  floating  ice  at  Trenton.  After  that,  with  Adams, 
Jefferson,  and  others,  he  laid  the  foundations  of  the 
United  States.  The  stars  and  stripes  became  the  flag 
of  a  great  republic. 

During  those  three  hundred  years  the  great  West 
has  been  opened  up;  gold  has  been  found  in  Cali- 
fornia, and  thousands  have  lost  their  lives  in  crossing 
the  plains  in  search  of  it.  During  that  time  the  anti- 
slavery  struggle  has  come  and  gone.  Men  said,  "It  is 
not  right  to  buy  and  sell  human  beings,  to  beat  them 
and  chain  them  like  cattle;"  hence  the  awful  war  of 
the  Rebellion  in  which  a  million  or  more  people  lost 
their  lives.  In  Europe,  these  three  hundred  years 
have  seen  the  wild,  mad  times  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, where  people,  crushed  by  cruelty,  became  them- 
selves fearfully  cruel.  Napoleon  fd  Wellington 
fought  the  great  battle  of  Waterloo.  The  Crimean 
war  and  many  another  bloody,  bloody  scene  have  been 
enacted  since  these  two  little  lines  were  written.    Only 


LITTLE  CANDLES  I95 

seventeen  words,  but  they  shine  down  through  tem- 
pest and  storm,  through  bitterness  and  cruelty,  through 
ignorance  and  hatred,  through  the  noise  and  rush  and 
scramble  of  the  centuries  to  please  the  fancy,  kindle 
the  imagination,  and  light  the  consciences  of  some 
little  boys  and  girls  in  Chicago.  Here  is  a  little 
candle  lit  three  hundred  years  ago  and  three  thousand 
miles  away,  still  burning,  and  you  and  I  see  the  light 
of  it. 

And  if  we  look  back  of  the  candle,  the  hand  that 
lit  it  was  at  that  time  obscure  enough.  A  humble  fel- 
low was  William  Shakespeare  then.  His  father  was 
probably  a  butcher;  he  himself  seems  to  have  learned 
the  trade  of  a  wool-comber.  After  that  he  became 
a  recorder's  clerk  and  perhaps  a  not  very  successful 
play  actor,  and  still  his  candles  shine.  He  put  one  of 
them  into  the  hand  of  the  noble  Portia,  who  in  the 
same  play  repeats  these  wonderful  lines  about  mercy: 

The  quality  of  mercy  is  not  strained, 
It  droppeth  as  the  gentle  rain  from  heaven 
Upon  the  place  beneath ;  it  is  twice  blest ; 
It  blesseth  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes : 
'Tis  mightiest  in  the  mightiest ;  it  becomes 
The  throned  monarch  better  than  his  crown; 
His  sceptre  shows  the  force  of  temporal  power, 
The  attribute  to  awe  and  majesty, 
Wherein  doth  sit  the  dread  and  fear  of  kings. 
But  mercy  is  above  this  sceptred  sway; 
It  is  enthroned  in  the  hearts  of  kings, 
It  is  an  attribute  to  God  himself ; 
And  earthly  power  doth  then  show  likest  God's 
When  mercy  seasons  justice. 


196  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

This  candle  has  thrown  a  hght  into  cruel  hearts, 
made  people  more  tender,  less  selfish,  more  noble. 

And  in  the  same  play  this  butcher's  son  has  given 
us  a  pitiful  picture  of  the  poor  old  Jew,  nagged  for 
his  religion's  sake,  spit  upon  and  hated,  abused  because 
of  the  race  to  which  he  belonged,  until  at  last  he  was 
stung  to  severity  and  meanness.  For  most  of  the 
three  hundred  years  since  Shakespeare  lit  this  candle, 
people  have  thought  Shylock  a  character  to  be  hated, 
to  be  ridiculed,  to  be  despised.  But  somehow  the 
light  of  this  candle  grows  clearer  as  we  get  farther 
away  from  it.  Or  rather  it  is  our  eyes  that  grow 
clearer  to  see  the  beauty  of  the  light  and  the  direction 
in  which  it  travels.  And  now  people  are  learning  to 
pity  poor  old  Shylock,  who  has  been  so  abused,  and  to 
say,  no  wonder  he  grew  hard  and  at  last  indignant ; 
we  too  would  be  as  bad  had  we  received  such  treat- 
ment. 

But  let  us  leave  Shakespeare,  the  great  candle- 
lighter  who  has  made  the  heavens  of  thought  and 
feeling  bright  with  lights  that  shine  like  stars,  and 
see  if  we  can  find  other  illustrations  of  this  beautiful 
text  to  help  us  remember  and  appreciate  it. 

It  is  good  to  recall  some  of  the  now  famous  lights, 
which  were  once  but  humble  candles  lit  in  the  dark. 
I  wonder  if  you  have  heard  of  John  Pounds,  the 
Portsmouth  cobbler,  who  lived  more  than  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  ago,  and  who  for  twenty  years 
gathered  in  his  shop  the  little  ragged  outcasts  of  the- 
streets  to  teach  them  to  read  and  write,  tempting  them 


LITTLE  CANDLES  197 

thither  with  hot  potatoes  which  he  baked  in  the  ashes 
in  his  little  chimney  corner.  Thus  he  laid  the  founda- 
tion of  a  great  system  of  schools  known  in  England 
as  the  "ragged  schools,"  which  spread  all  over  the 
land  until  there  was  scarcely  a  town  of  importance  in 
England  without  one.  We  read  of  one  person  who 
in  ten  years  fed  and  taught  four  thousand  different 
children.  These  schools  grew  until  they  became  what 
is  now  the  free-school  system  of  England.  How  that 
little  deed  of  kindness  "shines  in  a  naughty  world." 
"How  far  that  little  candle  throws  his  beams!" 

You  have  heard  the  beautiful  story  about  Sir 
Philip  Sidney,  perhaps  the  most  famous  of  the  noble 
stories  in  the  English  language  to  illustrate  our  text, 
and  the  best  thing  about  it  is  that  it  is  true.  Sir 
Philip  was  a  courtier  with  eminent  titles  and  vast 
estates.  He  was  a  poet,  and  he  wrote  beautiful  stories, 
but  it  is  not  for  his  poems  or  his  stories  that  he  is  best 
remembered.  When  fighting  with  the  Hollanders 
who  were  struggling  for  their  freedom  at  Ziitphen, 
he  fell,  mortally  wounded.  As  they  were  carrying 
him  from  the  field,  he  complained  of  intense  thirst. 
When  the  canteen  was  put  to  his  lips,  he  noticed  a 
private  soldier  looking  wistfully  toward  the  water. 
The  titled  officer  put  the  untasted  water  from  his  lips, 
and,  handing  it  to  the  dying  soldier,  said,  "Thy  neces- 
sity is  yet  greater  than  mine."  For  this  good  deed 
the  name  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney  remains  as  a  type  of 
the   true  gentleman,   the   noble   Christian   knight,    a 


198  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

soldier  without  guile  and  without  cruelty.  A  small 
act,  a  great  deed ;  a  little  candle,  a  great  light. 

I  hope  you  will  some  day  read  a  little  book  published 
by  the  American  Tract  Society,  called  The  Story  of 
Mary  Jones  and  her  Bible.  It  tells  of  a  little  girl  in 
North  Wales  who,  over  a  hundred  years  ago,  saved 
her  pennies  through  long  years,  and  they  came 
very  slowly,  in  order  that  she  might  buy  a  Bible  of 
her  own;  but  when  she  had  walked  twenty-five  miles, 
barefooted,  to  make  the  purchase  of  the  good  Dr. 
Charles  of  Bala,  she  found  that  the  limited  number  of 
Welsh  Bibles  which  had  been  brought  into  that  part 
of  the  country  had  been  all  sold  months  ago,  and  the 
London  Society  said  they  could  print  no  more.  The 
little  girl  broke  down  with  deep  disappointment  and 
wept  bitterly,  and  the  learned  doctor,  the  professor  of 
Bala  College,  said,  "You  shall  have  my  copy.  I  can 
read  it  in  other  languages."  From  that  experience 
started  the  impulse  to  organize  the  British  Foreign 
Bible  Society,  which  now  publishes  the  Bible  in  every 
language  on  the  globe. 

At  Bala  there  is  a  fine  monument  to  Rev.  Thomas 
Charles,  one  of  the  three  founders  of  the  British  and 
Foreign  Bible  Society,  and  there  is  carefully  pre- 
served in  a  glass  case,  in  the  rooms  of  the  British  and 
Foreign  Bible  Society  in  London,  an  old  Welsh  Bible 
published  in  1799.  On  the  blank  leaf  between  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments  is  the  inscription,  in  her  own 
handwriting,  which  states  that  this  book  was  bought 
by  Mary  Jones  in  the  sixteenth  year  of  her  age  with 


LITTLE  CANDLES  199 

her  own  money,  of  Dr.  Thomas  Charles.  A  Httle 
candle,  Ht  by  a  peasant  girl,  is  the  light  that  has  pene- 
trated the  darkness  and  created  the  Bible  Society 
which  now  publishes  the  Bible  in  two  hundred  and 
ninety-one  languages  and  distributes  about  four  mil- 
lion copies  annually,  many  of  them  gratuitously. 

When  you  remember  that  this  book  is  the  book 
above  all  others  that  best  teaches  the  law  of  love,  the 
rule  of  righteousness,  and  the  thought  of  the  one 
God,  universal  in  his  love,  just  in  his  dealings  with 
men,  you  must  see  indeed  "how  far  that  little  candle 
throws  his  beams !" 

The  story  is  told  of  Velasquez,  the  great  Spanish 
painter,  that  when  he  was  a  little  boy  his  father  led 
him  by  the  hand  through  a  noble  picture  gallery,  and 
he  saw  great  paintings  for  the  first  time  in  his  life. 
These  pictures  so  moved  his  little  heart  that  he  said, 
with  tears  in  his  eyes,  "Father,  I  too  am  a  painter!" 
So  when  boys  and  girls  see  "how  far  the  little  candle 
throws  his  beams,"  how  full,  how  great  are  the 
results  of  a  good  deed,  a  kind  act,  a  thoughtful  word, 
they  also,  like  the  little  boy  in  the  story,  find  their 
hearts  thrilled,  and  they  say,  "I  too  can  be  noble,  I 
too  will  be  gentle,  I  too  must  be  true."  The  Arabs 
have  a  pretty  proverb  which  says,  "A  fig  tree  look- 
ing upon  figs  becometh  fruitful."  So  the  soul  look- 
ing upon  excellence  becomes  excellent ;  the  heart  in  the 
presence  of  nobility  becomes  noble.  Let  us  think  of 
these  great  stories,  and  learn  how  possible  it  is  for 
each  one  of  us  to  do  something  that  may  become  a 


200  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

little  candle,  throwing-  a  beam  into  the  darkness  of  a 
naughty  world. 

When  Robert  Bruce,  the  brave  Scotchman,  died, 
he  bequeathed  his  heart  to  Douglas,  his  gallant  suc- 
cessor. This  brave  soldier  had  the  heart  of  his  hero 
prepared  and  sealed  in  a  silver  casket,  which  he  wore 
around  his  neck  on  his  crusade  to  the  Holy  Land. 
When  hard  pressed  by  foes,  and  his  courage  began 
to  flag,  he  seized  the  silver  case  from  his  neck,  threw 
it  far  forward  into  the  enemy's  lines,  and  then  rushed 
forward  to  regain  it.  He  fell,  following  his  ideal, 
pushing  forward  where  his  purpose  lay.  He  fell  in 
trying  to  live  up  to  a  noble  example.  He  died,  fol- 
lowing the  light  of  a  little  candle,  lit  far  away  and 
far  back  by  Robert  Bruce. 

Ziska  was  a  Bohemian  patriot,  a  leader  of  poor 
Bohemia  when  it  was  hard  pressed  by  tyrants,  and  its 
life  threatened  by  the  forces  that  at  length  cruelly 
destroyed  it.  Hoping  to  inspire  his  fellow  country- 
men with  valor  to  fight  for  the  losing  cause,  to  stand 
by  their  liberty  and  their  country,  this  chieftain 
ordered  that  after  his  death  his  skin  should  be  pre- 
pared and  used  to  cover  the  drumhead  which  should 
sound  the  call  for  other  patriots  to  die  a  patriot's 
death.  Such  deeds  of  valor  stir  others  to  valiant 
deeds. 

But  there  is  a  higher  valor  than  the  valor  of  the 
battlefield.  I  deplore  the  appeal  to  the  martial  spirit 
on  the  part  of  the  churches  and  in  the  name  of 
religion.      Perhaps  some  of  you  boys  have  already 


LITTLE  CANDLES  201 

been  invited  to  join  the  "military  brigades"  in  some 
of  the  churches.  We  sometimes  see  church  parlors 
converted  into  armories,  boys  marching  to  church  in 
uniforms,  and  muskets,  bayonets,  and  cartridge  boxes 
made  a  part  of  the  equipment  of  the  battalions  that 
seek  to  develop  character. 

I  like  courage.  I  believe  with  Emerson  when  he 
says  in  his  poem  that  there  are  times  when 

'Tis  man's  perdition  to  be  safe 
When    for  the   truth   he   ought   to   die. 

Life  is  too  cheap  to  be  preserved  when  honor  is  gone, 
and  there  have  been  times,  there  may  yet  come  times, 
when,  for  the  sake  of  peace,  awful  blows  must  be 
struck.  But  the  captain  of  war  is  no  longer  the  type 
of  the  noblest  hero.  The  cannon's  roar  is  not  the 
voice  of  the  God  we  worship.  It  is  possible  to  be 
braver  with  lilies  than  with  muskets  in  our  hands. 
The  flag  we  honor  is  a  flag  of  peace  and  not  of  war. 
It  represents  a  country  whose  power  is  measured  not 
by  its  standing  armies,  but  by  its  industrial  armies 
whose  defense  consists  not  in  its  muskets,  batteries,  or 
floating  navies,  but  in  the  smile  of  liberty,  the  grace 
of  justice,  and  the  far-off  but  ever-pursued  dream  of 
equity.  So  let  us  look  for  the  candles,  the  "good 
deeds  that  shine  in  a  naughty  world,"  lit  by  gentle- 
ness and  meekness,  not  by  war's  alarums  or  the 
soldier's  exploits. 

I  like  to  tell  the  story  of  a  miserable  little  group 
of  children  whom  I  found  one  chilly  night  many 
years  ago,  on  a  belated  train  out  on  an  Iowa  prairie. 


202  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

It  was  near  midnight  when  I  boarded  the  train.  The 
car  was  lonely  for  want  of  passengers,  for  it  carried 
only  two  or  three  reluctant  campaigners  like  myself, 
and,  in  the  far  corner,  a  little  group  of  unaccompanied 
children.  The  oldest  was  a  boy  of  fourteen,  the 
youngest  a  babe  not  six  months  old,  and  between 
these  were  an  unhappy  little  brother  and  two  sisters. 
All  were  coarsely  dressed,  unwashed,  and  uncombed. 
The  oldest  brother  made  an  awkward  nurse  for  the 
puny  little  babe  who  so  needed  care,  while  the  others, 
silenced  by  a  misery  too  deep  for  tears,  too  long 
drawn  out  for  wails,  clustered  around  his  knees.  I 
heard  the  poor  brother-mother  try  to  croon  with  dis- 
cordant throat  a  little  lullaby.  He  hummed  in  under- 
tone the  old  Sunday-school  song  of  my  childhood: 

I  want  to  be  an  angel 

And  with  the  angels  stand, 
A  crown  upon  my  forehead, 

A  harp  within  my  hand. 

But  the  baby  did  not  want  to  be  an  angel ;  it  wanted 
food  and  care.  I  took  the  pale  little  thing  in  my  arms, 
and,  profiting  by  an  experience  which  at  that  time 
was  fresh,  I  succeeded  in  bringing  sleep  to  the  little 
tired  bit  of  humanity. 

I  soon  learned  their  story  from  the  foster-mother. 
The  father,  a  shoemaker,  had  gone  out  to  Kansas  to 
make  a  home  for  his  family,  but  in  a  year's  time  he 
was  so  smitten  by  malaria  and  pioneer  hardships  that 
his  hands  grew  weak,  and  he  lay  down  and  died.  Sfx 
months  afterward  the  mother  yielded  the  battle  and 


LITTLE  CANDLES  203 

left  five  little  orphans  away  out  on  the  prairie.  Good 
friends  bought  the  newly  made  cabin  aad  the  bit  of 
land,  and  with  the  sixty  dollars  that  remained  when 
the  debts  were  paid,  this  fourteen-year  old  brother 
was  taking  his  helpless  charges  back  to  "Grandpap's" 
in  Wisconsin.  In  twenty-four  hours,  if  all  went  well, 
they  would  be  sheltered  in  the  safe  haven  of  love. 

The  boy's  lullaby  probably  suggested  to  him  the 
picture  of  angels  with  wings,  white  wings  with  long 
feathers,  airy,  fairy  angels  that  float  in  the  sky,  that  can 
sit  upon  clouds  and  not  fall  off;  angels  with  harps, 
whose  strings  are  not  affected  by  moisture,  but  which 
forever  and  always  yield  heavenly  music.  I  do  not 
know  much  about  such  angels.  I  believe  there  are 
many  fair  and  beautiful  creatures  of  God  with  whom  I 
am  not  acquainted.  I  am  sure  there  are  brighter  be- 
ings in  heaven  and  earth  than  our  philosophers  dream 
of,  and  I  expect  beautiful  lives  with  beautiful  accom- 
paniments in  store  for  the  struggling  children  of  men 
after  this  life  is  lived.  I  know  not  of  angels  with 
feathers,  but  I  do  know  the  angels  of  God;  the 
dvjeXoL^  the  messengers,  as  the  old  Greeks  used  to 
call  them,  that  belong  to  this  world;  who  go  up  and 
down  the  earth  bearing  messages  of  good-will ;  who 
run  on  God's  errands  of  mercy  and  helpfulness.  I  do 
know  angels  of  God  who  wear  clothes  and  eat  bread 
and  drink  milk ;  angels,  who,  when  full  grown,  weigh 
one  hundred  and  more  pounds.  I  do  know  angels  of 
love  that  make  our  lives  sweet,  that  break  the  hard 
knocks  which  would  otherwise  fall  upon  our  unpro- 


204  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

tected  heads,  the  angels  that  soothe  and  shelter,  purify 
and  help. 

I  know  not  what  has  become  of  the  little  babe  of 
my  story.  He  may  have  grown  up  to  sing  the  cradle 
song  that  failed  to  soothe  him  during  that  miserable 
night  on  the  Iowa  prairie,  and  he  may  "want  to  be  an 
angel"  with  wings,  but  it  will  be  sad  if  no  one  tells 
him  of  the  real  angel,  God's  true  messenger,  a  verit- 
able member  of  the  dvyeXoc  ,  who  bore  him  when  a 
babe  all  the  way  from  his  orphan  home  in  Kansas  to 
the  sheltering  arms  of  "Grandpap"  and  "Grand- 
ma'am"  in  Wisconsin. 

Be  it  as  it  may,  dear  children,  about  the  angels  in 
the  sky,  or  whatever  beautiful  life  the  great  bye-and- 
bye  may  hold  in  store  for  us,  be  assured  that  you  can 
be  angels  of  love  and  beauty,  of  joy  and  duty,  here 
and  now.  When  you  speak  the  words  of  kindness 
and  do  the  deeds  of  helpfulness,  you  are  in  truth,  in 
sober  fact,  what  your  mothers  sometimes  call  you, 
"little  angels." 

I  may  never  know  the  sequel  to  the  story  of  that 
little  group  of  orphan  children,  but  this  I  know,  that 
the  clumsy  tenderness,  the  precocious  forethought  of 
that  awkward  boy  has  been  a  candle,  to  me,  at  least, 
shining  in  a  naughty  world  through  many,  many  years. 
It  was  nearly  twenty  years  ago,  and  still  that  boy's 
face  shines  before  my  eyes  with  a  radiance  which 
Raphael  was  never  able  to  give  to  his  angels.  It 
shines  with  a  benediction  which  I  look  for  in  vain 


LITTLE  CANDLES  205 

among  the  rapt  faces  of  Fra  Angelico,  the  master 
painter  of  angel  bands. 

That  face  suggests  the  good  deeds  that  inspire  a 
valor  higher  than  is  known  on  field  of  battle,  holier 
than  those  represented  by  the  uniforms,  the  guns,  and 
the  music  of  our  warlike  Christians  who  are  today 
being  marshaled  in  the  name  of  Jesus,  the  lowly  and 
the  loving,  the  gentle  and  the  submissive,  who  died 
without  resisting  cruelty,  while  uttering  the  words, 
"Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they 
do!" 

Not  long  ago  I  spent  a  day  at  Santa  Fe,  the  capital 
city  of  the  Territory  of  New  Mexico,  a  curious, 
quaint  old  Mexican  town  only  partially  American- 
ized. I  can  scarcely  accustom  myself  to  the  thought 
that  away  out  there  on  the  arid  plains  of  New  Mexico, 
seven  thousand  feet  above  the  sea,  with  endless  miles 
of  dry,  parched,  uninhabited  plains  studded  with  cacti, 
sage  grass,  soap  weed,  and  dwarf  cedars,  stands  what 
is  probably  the  most  ancient  city  in  the  United  States. 
St.  Augustine,  of  Florida,  boasts  of  having  been 
founded  by  the  Spaniards  in  1595,  but  the  records 
claim  that  Coronado,  the  old  Mexican  pathfinder, 
founded  here  a  village  in  1540,  fifty-five  years  before 
the  founding  of  St.  Augustine,  and  that  he  took 
possession  of  it  then  and  there  in  the  name  of  Christ 
and  in  the  interests  of  Spain.  Be  this  as  it  may,  it  is 
certain  that  in  1605,  fifteen  years  before  the  landing 
of  the  Pilgrims  at  Plymouth  Rock,  the  Spaniards 
planted  a  colony  which  they  named  La  Ciiidad  Real 


2o6  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

de  La  Santa  Fe  de  San  Francisco,  "The  True  City  of 
the  holy  faith  of  St.  Francis,"  the  name  which  has 
been  shortened  by  our  practical  Yankee  people  into 
Santa  Fe,   Holy  Faith. 

Here  I  visited  what  is  asserted  to  be  the  oldest 
house  of  worship  in  this  country,  the  church  of  San 
Miguel,  built  soon  after  the  occupation  of  the  town  in 
1605.  The  old  original  adobe  walls,  built  of  unburnt 
brick,  still  stand.  Inside  is  seen  the  old  copper  bell  sent 
from  far-off  Spain,  bearing  the  date  of  1350  in  its 
battered  rim,  making  it  about  five  hundred  and  fifty 
years  old.  And  now  at  certain  times  it  strikes  the 
call  for  the  children  who  attend  the  parish  school  near 
by  to  come  to  their  religious  lessons.  I  entered  the 
larger,  more  modern,  but  far  less  interesting  cathedral 
near  by,  and  there  I  found  the  good  father,  the  holy 
monk,  teaching  his  confirmation  class  an  Easter  les- 
son. There  were  from  fifty  to  sixty  children  present, 
Indian,  Mexican,  American,  and  perhaps  Irish  and 
German.  The  good  old  priest  talked  in  Spanish.  I 
knew  he  was  talking  to  them  of  God,  of  duty,  of 
heaven,  of  father,  of  love,  of  honor  and  righteous- 
ness, not  because  I  know  Spanish,  but  because  in  all 
modern  languages  the  great  words  are  very  much 
alike.  I  was  interested  in  seeing  how  closely  those 
children  of  what  we  call  the  "wild  West,"  listened, 
without  whisper  or  murmur.  Some  of  the  faces  were 
rapt  with  attention  while  the  good  father  gave  them 
their  Easter  lesson. 

In  the  afternoon  I  rode  on  horseback  out  on  the 


LITTLE  CANDLES  207 

dry,  dusty,  alkali,  desert-like  hills  away  beyond  the 
city,  out  of  sight  of  habitations,  passing  now  and  then 
some  Mexicans  bringing  into  town  bundles  of  dried 
wood, vegetables, or  cans  of  milk  strapped  to  the  backs 
of  their  burros,  the  little  dwarf  donkeys  not  much 
bigger  than  sheep.  Nine  miles  out  I  came  upon  the 
Tesuque  Pueblo,  a  village  of  old-fashioned  Indians 
related  to  the  curious  cliff-dwellers  of  Colorado,  who 
lived  in  holes  carved  in  the  face  of  the  upright  rock, 
story  upon  story,  like  swallows  in  the  bluff.  I  spent 
an  hour  with  those  simple  people,  who  were  clad  for 
the  most  part  in  blankets  and  moccasins.  I  went  into 
their  curious  mud  houses  built  two  stories  high,  the 
upper  tiers  of  which  were  entered  by  ladders  on  the 
outside.  As  I  stepped  into  the  doorways  I  received  the 
courteous  greeting  Entre,  which  is  the  Spanish  for 
"Come  in,"  but  there  their  speech  ended.  They  could 
talk  little  English,  and  I  could  talk  no  Indian  and 
little  Spanish.  Their  houses  in  the  main  were  cleanly. 
Most  of  the  people  were  busy  in  the  simple  industry 
of  making  baskets,  molding  and  decorating  crude 
pottery,  tanning  leather,  and  shaping  it  into  slippers 
and  moccasins  adorned  with  bead  ornaments.  There 
I  saw  the  grinding-stones  of  the  primitive  mill,  rude 
contrivances  by  means  of  which  they  reduced  their 
corn  into  meal  between  two  stones,  one  fixed,  the 
other  moved  by  the  hands  of  the  women. 

In  one  of  the  houses  where  the  women  wore 
modern  clothes,  calico  dresses  and  "boughten"  shoes, 
I  asked  the  usual  question,  "Can  you  speak  English?" 


2o8  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY  ^ 

They  smiled  intelligently,  and  one  of  the  women  lifted 
a  trap-door  and  called  down  through  it.  Presently 
from  the  lower  story  popped  the  head  of  a  bright- 
faced  boy  looking  strangely  familiar,  dressed  in  knee- 
pants,  shoes,  and  woolen  stockings,  and  wearing  a 
white  collar  and  a  necktie.  When  I  asked  him  if  he 
could  talk  English,  he  promptly  replied,  "Yes,  sir." 

"Where  did  you  learn  it?" 

"At  school." 

"Where  did  you  go  to  school?" 

"Santa  Fe." 

"Why  are  you  not  at  school  now?" 

"It  is  vacation,  Easter  time." 

"When  did  you  come  home?" 

"Today.     School  closed  at  noon." 

Then  it  all  came  back  to  me.  This  was  the  very  face 
I  had  noticed  at  Santa  Fe  that  morning,  as  being  so 
deeply  interested  in  the  story  which  the  good  Catholic 
priest  was  telling  the  children  in  his  confirmation 
class.  And  then  I  thought  of  my  own  confirmation 
class,  and  I  remembered  your  motto : 

How    far  that   little  candle   throws   his   beams ! 
So  shines  a  good  deed  in  a  naughty  world. 

I  took  much  comfort  in  the  thought  that  the 
good  teacher's  word  was  bringing  a  light  into  the 
simple  homes  of  the  Tesuque  pueblos.  This  boy  had 
come  home  perhaps  to  teach  the  mother  and  father 
how  to  read,  and  gradually  he  will  lift  some  of  the 
simple-minded  pueblos  into  more  comfort  and  larger 
life. 


LITTLE  CANDLES  209 

But  your  motto  carried  me  still  farther  back.  The 
teacher-priest  belonged  to  the  Jesuit  order,  and  I  was 
reminded  of  that  Spanish  soldier  whose  leg  was 
shattered  at  Pampeluna,  just  about  the  time  that  the 
old  church  of  San  Miguel  was  being  builded  in  Santa 
Fe.  That  impulsive,  ambitious  soldier,  while  tossing 
with  the  fever  of  impatience  in  the  Spanish  hospital, 
took  to  reading  the  Lives  of  the  Saints,  and  as  the 
story  of  their  goodness  and  self-denial  sank  into  his 
heart,  there  dawned  in  his  mind  visions  of  nobler 
things  than  being  a  soldier,  seeking  to  take  life  with 
carnal  weapons.  He  saw  great  moral  battle-fields 
where  there  were  needed  heroes  of  love.  He  heard  a 
call  for  warriors  for  truth,  soldiers  of  the  cross,  and 
the  crippled  soldier  became  the  great  Loyola,  who 
founded  the  great  teaching  order  in  the  Catholic 
church.  These  Jesuits  became  the  schoolmasters  of 
Christendom;  they  went  everywhere,  and  taught,  and 
taught,  and  taught,  until  now  their  colleges  are  in 
every  part  of  the  world,  and  their  work  extends  from 
the  Indian  schools  in  the  West  to  the  great  College 
of  the  Propaganda  at  Rome,  where  it  is  said  that  every 
language  and  every  dialect  of  the  world  is  taught. 

Brave  soldier!  The  bravest  act  of  his  life  was 
when  he  voluntarily  turned  from  guns  and  bayonets, 
painfully  to  take  up  the  spelling  book  and  the  arith- 
metic, first  mastering  them  himself  and  then  enlisting 
an  army  vowed  to  teach  them  to  others.  All  the  way 
from  the  hospital  in  Spain  down  through  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years,  streams  the  light  that  shone  upon 


2IO  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

me  that  day  in  the  pueblo  of  the  Tesuques  in  far-off 
New  Mexico. 

But  there  was  a  candle  back  of  that.  Nearly  three 
hundred  years  before  the  fiery  Spanish  soldier  lay 
in  the  hospital  reading  the  lives  of  the  saints,  an 
Italian  babe  was  born  into  a  wealthy  home.  He  grew 
up  to  love  gaiety,  to  be  prodigal  of  wealth,  to  love  the 
exercise  of  arms,  and  to  delight  in  the  enthusiasms 
and  pleasures  of  the  chivalry  of  the  day,  in  fine 
horses,  handsome  equipages,  sword  exercises,  and 
gallantry.  In  one  of  the  forays  of  his  boyhood  he 
was  taken  prisoner.  For  a  year  he  languished  as  a 
captive.  Illness  came,  he  began  to  read  and  to  be 
touched  by  the  story  of  the  excellences  and  kindnesses 
farther  back,  and  he  vowed  himself  to  helpfulness  and 
poverty.  When  he  returned  to  the  world,  he  laid 
aside  the  soldier's  arms  and  the  trappings  of  pride, 
and  clothed  himself  with  a  gray  garment  fastened 
around  the  waist  with  a  rope.  He  was  touched  with 
a  marvelous  gentleness.  He  loved  the  birds  and 
joined  with  them  in  their  chorals.  He  made  a  little 
neglected  lamb  his  companion,  taking  it  with  him  on 
a  journey  to  Rome.  He  studied  the  grasshoppers, 
and  they  used  to  come  and  sing  on  his  fingers.  He 
preached  to  the  flowers  and  fishes.  He  became  the 
gentle  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  who  founded  the  order 
of  Franciscans.  His  story  must  have  fired  the  heart 
of  Loyola,  the  guide  and  inspiration  of  the  priest  who 
taught  the  Indian  boy  that  talked  English  with  me  in 
the  pueblo  of  the  Tesuques  in  the  far  West,  and  more 


LITTLE  CANDLES  21 1 

than  that,  as  I  have  said  already,  the  fair  town  of 
Santa  Fe  was  first  named  "The  True  City  of  the  Holy 
Faith  of  St.  Francis."  All  the  way  from  the  little 
village  in  Italy,  through  seven  hundred  years  of  time, 
shine  the  good  deeds  of  St.  Francis  in  the  naughty 
world  of  New  Mexico. 

And  still  we  have  not  reached  our  first  candle. 
What  was  it  that  sank  deep  into  the  life  of  this  gay 
young  Italian  cavalier  as  he  lay  tossing  with  fever  on 
a  prison  bed?  It  was  the  story  of  another  life,  a  story 
that  had  traveled  thither  from  Asia  through  eleven 
hundred  years  of  time,  the  story  of  a  peasant  boy  who 
was  the  pride  of  his  mother,  the  helper  of  his  father, 
who  grew  into  manly  earnestness,  who  spoke  words 
of  such  holy  simplicity  that  fishermen  left  their  nets 
and  followed  him,  and  the  water-carriers  at  the  well 
stopped  to  ask  him  questions.  The  tax-collector  and 
the  politicians  ceased  to  wrangle  over  party  issues  and 
listened  to  what  he  had  to  say  about  the  great  things 
of  love  and  duty.  The  higher  dignitaries  of  the 
church  wondered  at  his  audacity,  but  listened  to  him 
notwithstanding.  He  taught  people  in  simple  stories. 
He  showed  them  the  difference  between  pretension  and 
reality.  He  taught  them  to  measure  the  value  of  a 
deed  by  the  intentions  and  not  by  the  accomplish- 
ments. The  widow's  mite  was  worth  more  to  God, 
he  said,  than  the  wealthy  man's  eagles,  because  she 
gave  out  of  her  needs  while  he  gave  out  of  his  plenty. 
The  infidel  who  took  care  of  the  wounded  man,  and 
not  the  priest  who  passed  him  by,  was  most  acceptable 


212  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

to  God.  Such  stories  as  these  were  told  by  a  man 
whose  Hfe  was  so  kind  that  children  clustered  about 
him,  and  lonely,  discouraged,  and  grief-stricken 
women  trusted  him. 

This  life  of  a  Judean  peasant  kindled  in  the 
heart  of  St.  Francis  the  light  which  penetrated  the 
darkened  spirit  of  Loyola,  crossed  the  seas  in  the 
caravels  of  Columbus,  and  traveled  on  through  the 
wilderness  of  North  America,  on  into  the  great  val- 
leys of  Mexico,  on  with  the  explorers  who  laid  the 
foundations  of  the  city  of  the  "Holy  Faith"  of  St. 
Francis.  This  light  established  the  school  at  Santa 
Fe,  which  brightened  the  face  of  the  Indian  boy  in 
the  pueblo.     Surely, 

How   far  that  little  candle   throws   his   beams ! 
So  shines  a  good  deed  in  a  naughty  world. 

And  still,  there  are  candles  back  of  this  candle. 
We  have  not  yet  come  to  the  beginning  of  the  light. 
What  did  Mother  Mary  teach  the  boy  Jesus?  What 
were  the  stories  she  had  to  tell  him?  She  could  not 
tell  him  of  the  fiery  boy  Loyola  or  the  gentle  St. 
Francis,  for  they  were  yet  to  come;  but  she  could 
tell  him  of  the  heroic  Maccabean  kings,  of  the  valiant 
Daniel  who  would  not  bow  the  knee  to  a  false  God, 
of  the  great  king  David  who,  before  he  was  king, 
played  on  his  harp  the  tunes  which  the  quails  loved 
and  which  soothed  the  melancholy  spirit  of  the  grim 
king  Saul.  She  could  tell  him  of  little  Samuel  and 
his  good  mother  Hannah,  who  gave  him  as  a  babe 
to  serve  at  the  altars  of  Yahveh,  the  great  God.     She 


LITTLE  CANDLES  213 

could  tell  him  of  the  brave  old  prophets  of  Israel  who 
went  up  and  down  among-  the  people  pr^?iching  right- 
eousness, telling  them  the  Lord  their  God  required  of 
them  only  that  they  "do  justly,  love  mercy,  and  walk 
humbly  with  their  God." 

I  am  sure  Mother  Mary  loved  the  great  poets  of 
her  people.  She  loved  to  quote  to  the  little  boy  the 
sweet  hymns  of  the  temple,  such  as, 

The  Lord  is  my  shepherd,  I  shall  not  want. 

He  leadeth  me  beside  the  still  waters. 

He  maketh  me  to  lie  down  in  green  pastures; 


or, 


The  earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the  fulness  thereof, 
The  world  and  they  that  dwell  therein. 
For  he  hath  founded  it  upon  the  seas  and  estab- 
lished it  upon  the  rocks ; 


or, 


The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God. 

The  firmament  showeth  his  handiwork. 

Day   unto    day   uttereth    speech. 

Night   unto   night    showeth  knowledge; 
or  again, 

The  law   of  the   Lord  is   perfect,   converting  the 
soul. 

The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and   right- 
eous  altogether ; 

More  to  be  desired  are  they  than  gold,  yea,  than 
much  fine  gold; 

Sweeter  than  honey  and  the  honeycomb. 

Sometimes  when  she  was  not  tired  and  had  a  little 
time,  she  would  perhaps  read  from  the  great  drama 
of  Job,  written  by  some  great  Hebrew  Shakespeare, 


214  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

the  story  of  a  brave  old  hero,  who,  though  plagued, 
perplexed,  and  bereft,  "held  fast  unto  his  integrity." 
Though  he  was  smitten  with  disease,  though  he  lost 
his  property,  and  though  his  family  died  one  by  one 
he  stood  up  under  it  like  a  man,  and  would  not  be 
cast  down  and  profane  the  thought  of  God  because 
of  his  adversity.  And  then,  once  in  a  while,  for  bed- 
time stories,  Mother  Mary  would  tell  little  Jesus  the 
fairy  stories  of  her  people,  the  beautiful  legends  of 
creation,  the  Adam  and  Eve  story,  the  deluge  story, 
the  story  of  Joseph  and  the  spotted  coat,  of  little 
Moses  and  his  boat  of  bulrushes,  and  of  the  great 
wandering  in  the  wilderness.  Of  course  these  beauti- 
ful stories,  these  great  hero  stories,  as  well  as  the 
splendid  speeches  of  the  orators  of  Jewry,  helped  to 
kindle  the  light  in  the  home  of  Nazareth  where 
Jesus  grew  up.  Thus  it  is  that  the  world  is  illumined 
with  candles  lit  by  humble  hands  in  obscure  places, 
whose  light  never  goes  out  but  passes  on  around  the 
world  and  down  the  long  centuries. 

Dear  children,  may  each  one  of  you  be  a  little 
candle  that  will  burn  here  on  earth  for  earthly  purposes 
in  earthly  homes,  to  give  light  to  earthly  pilgrims. 
Never  mind  the  feather-winged  angels.  Let  us  be 
angels  with  willing  feet  and  ready  hands,  and,  when 
we  cannot  run,  let  us  walk  upon  the  errands  of  helpful- 
ness. We  will  not  aspire  to  be  "soldiers  of  the 
cross ;"  we  will  not  carry  guns  even  in  play,  but  we 
will  learn  the  manual  at  arms  of  love.  Better  a  kiss 
than  a  blow.     Better  a  smile  than  a  frown.     Better  a 


LITTLE  CANDLES  215 

citizen  than  a  soldier.  Better  a  home  than  a  fort. 
Better  a  good  deed  than  a  great  deed,  if  there  must 
be  a  distinction;  that  is  to  say,  better  do  a  kind  thing 
than  a  big  thing.  A  smile  is  oftentimes  the  most 
precious  of  gifts. 

Every  one  of   these  good   deeds   will   become  a 
candle  that  will  "shine  in  a  naughty  world." 


TJTTLE  WAVES 


A  NOISELESS  PATIENT  SPIDER 

A  noiseless  patient  spider, 

I  niark'd  where  on  a  little  promontory  it  stood  isolated, 

Mark'd  hozv  to  explore  the  vacant  vast  surrounding, 

It  launch'd  forth  filament,  filament,  filament,  out  of  itself, 

Ever  unreeling   them,   ever   tirelessly   speeding   them. 

And  you,  O  my  soul,  where  you  stand, 

Surrounded,  detached,  in  measureless  oceans  of  space, 

Ceaselessly    musing,    venturing,    throwing,    seeking    the    spheres 

to  connect  them. 
Till  the  bridge  you  will  need  be  form'd,  till  the  ductile  anchor 

hold. 
Till  the  gossamer  thread  you  fling  catch  somewhere,  O  my  soul. 

—Walt  Whitman 


XII 

LITTLE  WAVES 

No  rock  so  hard  but  that  a  little  wave 
May  beat  admission  in  a  thousand  years. 

— Alfred  Tennyson,  in  "The  Princess" 

Water  would  seem,  at  first  thought,  to  be  the 
weakest  of  things,  unstable,  changing,  and  fleeting. 
''Weak  as  water"  is  a  saying  familiar.  Poor,  down- 
hearted Keats,  dying  with  his  great  hopes  unrealized 
and  his  aching  soul  unsatisfied,  asked  his  friends  to 
inscribe  on  his  tombstone,  "Here  lies  one  whose  name 
was  writ  in  water."  Yet  water  is  one  of  the  mighty 
forces  of  the  world.  Water  is  the  great  architect  that 
has  builded  our  solid  continents.  Rock  strata  after 
strata  have  been  laid,  cemented,  and  solidified  by 
water.  Water  is  the  great  sculptor  that  has  hollowed 
the  caves,  scooped  the  valleys,  dug  out  the  wild 
gorges,  and  rounded  the  majestic  pillars  of  mountains. 
Water  was  the  cradle  and  early  home  of  all  life. 
Water  is  today  the  great  highway  of  the  world's  com- 
merce. It  fertilizes  our  fields,  it  gives  us  fruits,  it  is 
the  mother  of  grains  and  the  nurse  of  flowers.  With- 
out water  all  life  would  cease,  and  our  world  would 
shrivel  like  the  moon  into  a  lifeless  planet. 

And  water  has  accomplished  most  of  this  great 
work  through  its  weakness.  It  has  been  the  "little 
waves"  and  not  the  big  ones,  it  has  been  the  little 
rills  and  not  the  great  torrents,  that  have  done  most 

219 


220  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

of  this  work.  Not  the  terrible  freshets  or  the  roaring 
cataracts,  but  the  gentle  shower,  the  quiet  dews,  the 
patient  and  still  rivers  working  silently  have  changed 
the  face  of  the  globe  and  are  still  changing  it. 

I  once  spent  much  of  one  night  and  all  of  the 
next  day  in  Mammoth  Cave,  traveling  through  its 
wonderful  halls  and  avenues.  Our  walk  was  some 
eighteen  or  twenty  miles  long.  The  cave  has  winding 
archways,  great  halls,  echoing  chambers,  mystic 
rivers,  and  silent  lakes  in  which  eyeless  fish  live  in 
perpetual  darkness.  And  this  great  silent  realm  has 
been  hollowed  out  by  a  little  stream  of  water  which  in 
most  places  a  child  can  step  across.  There  you  see 
splendid  pendants  of  stalactites  twenty  or  thirty  feet 
long,  white  as  alabaster,  hanging  like  rocky  icicles 
from  lofty  ceilings.  These  are  matched  below  by 
rising  pillars  of  stalagmite,  the  one  growing  down 
from  the  point  the  drop  leaves,  the  other  growing  up 
from  the  point  the  drop  reaches.  Sometimes  these 
points  meet,  stalactite  and  stalagmite  join,  and  they 
still  continue  to  grow  into  fantastic  pillars.  All  these 
are  made  by  the  slow  and  patient  toil  of  the  water.  It 
is  only  by  the  slow  work  of  drop  after  drop  that  the 
little  line  particles  from  the  dripping  water  are  ranged 
in  order  and  these  beautiful  stone  growths  realized. 

In  many  parts  of  the  cave,  when  you  stop  and  hold 
your  breath  to  listen,  you  hear  the  drip,  drip,  drip, 
incessantly  going  on.  Tick,  tick,  tick,  goes  the  cave 
clock,  counting  off  the  moments  of  that  sunless  world, 
measuring   the   eternal   night   where   light   never   is. 


LITTLE  WAVES  221 

Thus  the  water  works,  not  only  hollowing  out  the 
great  cave,  but  beautifying,  decorating,  ^festooning  it 
with  alabaster,  and  carving  its  pillars  into  a  thou- 
sand grotesque  shapes  and  fantastic  images.  Tourists 
imagine  they  see  old  men,  cats,  owls,  eagles,  angels, 
elephants,  roses,  dahlias,  pine  trees,  and  Gothic 
cathedrals,  all  worked  out  in  this  mammoth  cave  by 
water  in  the  form  of  little  waves,  smaller  rills,  and 
still  smaller  drops,  and  water  still  more  divided  and 
subdivided  until  you  could  neither  see  nor  feel  it, 
except  as  imperceptible  moisture  continually  busy  at 
its  exquisite  molding  and  painting. 

Once  I  visited  the  less  extensive  but  world-famous 
caves  of  Bellamar,  Cuba,  that  some  years  later  gave 
shelter  to  the  hard-pressed  Cubans  in  their  struggle 
for  liberty.  There  I  saw  stalactites  which  were  said 
to  be  the  largest  in  the  world,  some  of  them  measur- 
ing forty  feet  in  circumference.  At  another  time  I 
went  through  what  seemed  to  me,  in  some  respects, 
the  most  beautiful  cave  of  all,  the  Luray  cave  of  Vir- 
ginia, with  its  great  halls  lighted  by  hundreds  of  elec- 
tric lights  which  the  guide  turns  on  or  off  to  increase 
the  mystic  power  of  the  weird  formations. 

Once,  in  my  army  days,  a  little  squad  of  us,  hard 
pressed  with  hunger,  and  thirsty  and  weary,  found 
shelter  in  the  mouth  of  Nick-a-Jack  Cave,  a  few  miles 
from  Chattanooga.  Out  from  under  the  heart  of  old 
Lookout  Mountain,  there  comes  a  beautiful  pearly 
stream  of  water,  cool,  sweet,  and  clear.  Near  by, 
under  the  shadow  of  a  great  old  rock,  we  came  upon 


222  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

a  box  of  hardtack,  left,  lost,  or  forgotten,  weeks, 
perhaps  months  before.  The  crackers  were  water- 
soaked  and  green  with  mildew,  but  they  were  delight- 
fully welcome  all  the  same,  and  half  an  hour  trans- 
formed us  from  tired,  discouraged,  almost  despairing 
soldiers  into  cheerful  and  hopeful  explorers.  We 
followed  the  cave  river  up  into  the  darkness,  clam- 
bered over  the  rocks,  tried  the  echoes,  and  well  nigh 
lost  ourselves  in  the  mystic  night  that  never  was 
broken.  Some  day  you  will  visit  these  and  other 
caves  elsewhere,  and  you  will  remember  that  they  are 
all  made  by  the  "little  waves,"  whose  persistence  for 
many,  many  thousand  years  at  length  "beat  admis- 
sion" through  the  rocks. 

But  it  is  not  necessary  to  visit  caves  in  order  to 
see  what  the  little  waves  may  accomplish  in  a  thou- 
sand years.  Some  of  you  have  visited  the  Dells  of  the 
Wisconsin  River,  and  have  seen  "Cold  Water  Canon," 
"Steamboat  Rock,"  "Diamond  Rock,"  "Witches' 
Gulch,"  "Cave  of  the  Dark  Waters,"  "Swallow 
Rock,"  "The  Navy  Yard,"  "Stand  Rock,"  "Hornets' 
Nest,"  "Sugar  Bowl,"  and  a  great  many  other 
strange,  beautiful,  and  fantastic  forms  scooped, 
molded,  and  scraped  by  the  Wisconsin  River  out  of 
the  rocky  walls  that  press  its  sides  and  would  fain 
obstruct  its  passage;  but  great  as  were  the  solid 
rocks,  notwithstanding  they  had  been  hardened  by 
pressure  and  by  heat,  the  water,  the  slow,  patient 
water  has  worked  its  way  through,  and  every  summer 
thousands  of  tourists  go  a  long  way  for  the  sake  of 


LITTLE  WAVES  223 

a  ride  on  the  little  steamer  "Dell  Queen,"  that  ven- 
tures up  and  down  this  six-  or  eight-mil^_  wonder-ride. 

But  this  is  small  work,  this  is  river-play,  com- 
pared with  what  the  Colorado  River  has  done,  carv- 
ing out  its  Grand  Cafion  three  hundred  miles  long, 
walled  in  by  perpendicular  rocks  in  some  places  six 
thousand  feet  high.  Away  down  at  the  bottom  runs 
the  wild  little  river  that  has  done  it  all.  It  began 
its  work  away  up  there  thousands  of  feet  above  the 
highest  wall,  and  it  keeps  carving  away,  making  more 
and  more  magnificent  what  is  already  the  most  won- 
derful gorge  in  the  world. 

But  you  need  not  go  to  Wisconsin  or  to  Arizona 
to  see  what  water  does.  Every  bluff  you  see,  all  the 
valleys  you  visit,  are  the  works  of  rivers.  Geologists 
tell  us  that  the  Catskill  Mountains  once  reached  to 
Massachusetts  Bay,  that  the  Cumberland  Mountains 
stretched  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  farther  west 
than  they  now  do;  that  where  the  city  of  Nashville 
now  stands  was  once  a  level  land  one  thousand  feet 
above  the  present  site;  that  one-half  of  Tennessee  has 
been  scraped  away,  and  carried  into  the  Gulf  of  Mex- 
ico, piecing  out  Alabama  and  Mississippi  on  the  south. 
The  Alleghanies  are  old  and  wasted ;  once,  when 
there  were  no  human  eyes  on  earth  to  see  them,  they 
were  three  thousand  feet  higher  than  they  are  now; 
their  summits  have  mostly  gone  down  into  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico. 

The  sand  on  the  lake  shore  is  powdered  rock, 
powdered  by  water.     Most  pebbles,   particularly  the 


224  .  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

smaller  ones,  have  been  rounded  and  polished  by- 
water.  The  mud,  which  in  springtime  is  so  unat- 
tractive but  in  summer  time  is  so  fertile,  has  been 
made  and  brought  thither  by  water. 

I  repeat,  water  is  the  great  architect;  water  is  the 
beautiful  painter;  water  is  one  of  God's  tools  in  mak- 
ing, shaping,  and  changing  the  world.  And  this  it  is 
able  to  do,  not  because  it  is  strong,  but  because  it  is 
persistent.  "Weak  as  water?"  Yes,  water  is  weak. 
But  "strong  as  water,"  because  water  is  tireless, 
diligent,  persistent.  Water  works,  and  works,  and 
works  and  never  ceases  to  work. 

Did  you  think  of  all  this  and  more  when  you 
selected  for  your  motto  the  beautiful  lines  of  Tennyson 
taken  out  of  the  heart  of  his  beautiful  poem,  "The 
Princess?" 

No  rock  so  hard  but  that  a  little  wave 
May  beat  admission  in  a  thousand  years. 

I  think  you  chose  it  because  you  knew  something  of 
what  I  have  been  hinting  at,  and  you  saw  how  it 
might  apply  to  your  lives  and  mine.  It  was  the 
"thousand  years,"  the  suggestion  of  persistency,  that 
appealed  to  your  imagination  and  pleased  your  fancy. 
Man  is  one  of  the  weakest  of  animals.  In  infancy 
he  is  the  most  helpless,  and  in  old  age  the  most 
pathetic.  Nature  leaves  him  in  a  very  pitiable  plight. 
The  past  winter  has  not  been  a  hard  one,  but  it  has 
been  cold  enough  to  freeze  to  death  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  living  north  of  the  Ohio  river  if 
they  were  left  as  nature  leaves  them;  and  the  sum- 


LITTLE  WAVES  225 

mer  will  be  hot  enough  to  kill  with  sunstroke  or 
prostration,  most  of  the  people  in  our  gountry  who 
live  south  of  the  Ohio  river  unless  they  avail  them- 
selves of  protection  and  help  other  than  that  which 
nature  provides.  Man's  body  is  by  nature  unpro- 
tected from  the  cold  of  winter  and  the  heat  of  sum- 
mer, and  inadequate  to  contend  with  the  wild  beast 
and  the  still  wilder  storms. 

But  man  has  mind,  by  the  use  of  which,  slowly, 
through  many,  many  thousand  years,  working  like 
the  "little  wave,"  he  has  gained  admission  into  com- 
fort, competency,  power.  By  the  use  of  his  brain  he 
has  made  him  a  coat  warmer  than  the  bear's,  and 
weapons  stronger  and  more  formidable  than  the 
claws  of  the  tiger  or  the  jaws  of  the  lion.  By  means 
of  his  brain  he  has  changed  his  enemies  into  friends, 
won  into  his  service  his  natural  foes.  He  has  con- 
verted the  dog,  whose  instinct  was  to  prey  upon  the 
sheep  and  to  devour  flesh,  into  a  protector  of  the 
sheep  and  the  best  companion  of  man.  Little  by  little, 
like  the  waves  working  upon  the  rock,  man  has 
worked  his  way  through  ignorance,  violence,  and 
weakness.  He  has  shaped  the  iron  in  such  a  way 
that  it  floats  on  water  and  carries  him  and  his  handi- 
work to  remote  parts  of  the  globe.  He  has  changed 
water  into  steam,  and  thus  added  to  its  power  so  that 
it  draws  him  over  the  mountains  or  through  them. 
He  has  felled  forests,  harnessed  rivers,  made  dry  the 
swamps  and  fertile  the  deserts. 

All  the  great  achievements  of  history   represent 


226  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

the  power  of  the  "Httle  wave"  beating  against  the 
rock  of  obstacles.  Progress  comes  by  the  beating  of 
Httle  waves  against  the  sohd  rocks  of  difficulties  and 
opposition.  Someone  has  said,  "When  God  would 
educate  a  man,  he  puts  him  to  the  school  of  adver- 
sity." We  know  that  Milton  was  quite  blind,  Dante 
became  almost  blind  in  the  later  years  of  his  life,  and 
legend  tells  us  that  Homer,  the  great  singer  of  the 
Greeks,  was  also  blind.  Henry  Fawcett,  when  an 
ambitious  young  man  in  his  college  years,  was  acci- 
dentally deprived  of  sight  by  the  unforeseen  dis- 
charge of  his  father's  gun.  "Never  mind,  father, 
blindness  shall  not  interfere  with  my  success  in  life," 
said  the  boy,  and  by  persistency  like  that  of  the  "little 
wave,"  he  won  admission  not  only  into  learning,  but 
into  power  and  usefulness.  He  became  a  prominent 
member  of  the  English  Parliament,  a  great  debater, 
and  finally  the  great  English  postmaster-general  under 
Gladstone.  Arthur  Kavanagh,  a  man  born  without 
arms  and  legs,  became  a  member  of  Parliament,  elo- 
quent and  influential,  a  good  rider,  and  a  lover  of 
sport.  In  the  Antwerp  Cathedral  in  1882,  I  saw  the 
man  who  has  won  fame  and  wealth  by  copying 
Rubens'  great  pictures  that  hang  in  the  noble 
cathedral,  and  this  man  had  no  arms,  but  was  busy 
painting  with  his  toes.     Surely, 

No  rock  so  hard  but  that  a  little  wave 

May  beat  admission. 

Edison  says  that  he  spent  seven  months  working 
from  eighteen  to  twenty  hours  a  day  before  he  could 


LITTLE  WAVES  227 

get  the  phonograph  to  say  "specia."  Back  and  back 
again — the  phonograph  would  only  say  ".pecia."  He 
could  not  make  it  report  the  'V-sound.  Says  the 
great  discoverer,  "It  was  enough  to  drive  one  mad, 
but  I  held  firm  and  I  succeeded."  The  "little  wave" 
"had  beat  admission"  through  the  hard  rock. 

Said  Ole  Bull,  "If  I  practice  one  day  I  can  see 
the  result.  If  I  practice  two  days,  my  friends  can 
see  it.  If  I  practice  three  days,  the  great  public  can 
see  it." 

Kitto,  a  great  biblical  scholar,  was  a  deaf  pauper 
who  used  to  patch  shoes  in  the  almshouse.  But  he 
studied  and  studied,  and  wrote  and  wrote,  and  he 
gained  admission.  The  little  wave  must  beat  often 
against  the  rock  of  difficulty  before  it  gains  admis- 
sion even  in  the  name  of  genius. 

It  is  easy  to  find  stories  of  those  who  have  become 
great  through  patience  and  diligence.  I  would  like  to 
tell  how  Elias  Howe,  while  perfecting  the  sewing- 
machine  in  London,  lived  on  beans  which  he  cooked 
himself;  how  Titian,  the  great  artist,  used  to  crush 
flowers  in  order  to  make  his  colors,  because  he  had  no 
money  to  buy  them.  And  you  will  think  for  your- 
selves of  the  story  of  our  Abraham  Lincoln  who, 
from  the  log  cabin  in  Indiana,  worked  his  way  to  the 
White  House  and  into  the  hearts  of  the  civilized 
world,  until  his  name  has  become  the  best-loved  name 
of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Green's  History  of  the  English  People  is  perhaps 
the  best  history  of  England  yet  written.     He  wrote 


228  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

it  when  fighting  with  a  mortal  disease.  He  dictated 
some  of  his  great  works  while  lying  on  a  bed  of 
suffering,  day  by  day  awaiting  death;  too  weak  to  lift 
a  book  or  hold  a  pen,  but  so  anxious  to  do  it  well  that 
he  redictated  some  of  the  chapters  five  times  and 
kept  at  it  and  at  it,  and  not  until  he  was  actually 
dying  did  he  say,  "I  can  work  no  more." 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  all  great  triumphs  have  been 
won  by  diligence,  by  the  patience  and  persistency  of 
the  little  wave  beating  against  the  rock  that  must 
ultimately  crumble  before  it. 

You  all  know  how  much  of  Bunker  Hill  is  above 
ground ;  you  can  tell  how  tall  it  is,  but  you  may  not 
stop  to  think  that  there  are  fifty  feet  of  Bunker  Hill 
under  ground.  The  engineer  knew  that  that  tall 
granite  shaft  could  not  stand  unless  it  rested  on  a 
foundation  deeper  than  frosts,  mud,  shifting  sands, 
and  yielding  soils.  He  planted  it  on  the  backbone  of 
old  Mother  Earth.  So  our  achievements  must  rest 
on  foundations  out  of  sight,  upon  slow  persistency, 
quiet  diligence,  tireless  industry.  A  pianist  about 
whom  great  crowds  were  accustomed  to  gather  once 
said  that  he  never  ventured  to  perform  one  of  his 
pieces  in  public  until  he  had  played  it  over  at  least 
fifteen  hundred  times.  It  was  the  little  wave  beating 
continuously  against  awkwardness  and  ignorance  that 
finally  gained  admission  into  the  temple  of  music. 

I  have  been  using  great  names,  my  children,  but  I 
have  been  talking  about  what  affects  your  lives  artd 
mine.     We  common  people,  we  little  folk,  have  in  us 


LITTLE  WAVES  229 

the  power  of  the  "Httle  wave,"  and  we  can  win  admis- 
sion, not  to  great  mental  achievements,  perhaps,  for 
they  are  for  the  few,  and  probably  not  to  great 
wealth,  for  only  a  few  become  wealthy,  but  to  that 
success  which  will  make  you  wealthy  without  money 
and  happy  even  without  what  the  world  calls  popu- 
larity or  influence.  I  ask  you  to  remember  this  beauti- 
ful text  of  Tennyson's  as  being  true  in  regard  to  the 
common,  obscure,  and  blessed  life  of  usefulness  and 
kindliness  which  is  within  the  reach  of  all,  and  is 
often  the  lot  of  those  who  never  become  great. 

There  are  many  things  I  would  like  to  say  to  you, 
my  children,  but  the  chief  lesson  of  the  text  you  have 
chosen  is  "persistence."  Stick  to  it!  Do  not  give  up! 
Do  not  get  discouraged !  Said  Charles  Sumner,  the 
great  senator,  "Only  three  things  are  necessary  in 
life:  First,  backbone;  second,  backbone;  third,  back- 
bone." Said  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  when  he  started 
his  little  Liberator,  a  bit  of  a  sheet  printed  in  a  Boston 
attic,  a  sheet  at  which  gentlemen  and  scholars  sneered, 
"I  am  in  earnest.  I  will  not  equivocate.  I  will  not 
excuse.  I  will  not  retreat  a  single  inch — and  I  will 
be  heard."  This  was  the  splendid  printer  who  became 
the  friend  of  the  friendless,  the  champion  of  the 
slave,  and  who,  more  than  any  other  man  I  can 
think  of,  helped  to  make  human  slavery  repugnant  to 
every  civilized  man.  This  was  the  man  for  whose 
head  the  governor  of  Georgia  offered  a  bounty  of 
five  thousand  dollars.  This  was  the  man  around 
whose  neck  a  Boston  mob  threw  a  rope  and  dragged 


230  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY     " 

him  to  jail.  They  erected  a  gallows  in  front  of  his 
house  as  a  warning,  but  he  lived  up  to  his  motto. 
And  at  last  his  word  "Freedom"  became  the  song  of 
the  nation.  You  may  not  be  a  Lloyd  Garrison,  but 
you  may  learn  from  him  the  price  of  admission  into 
your  usefulness  and  into  your  happiness.  I  do  not 
expect  you  to  win  eminence,  but  I  want  you  to  learn 
from  those  who  have  become  eminent  what  road  you 
common  boys  and  common  girls  must  travel  if  you 
would  reach  your  best,  which  is  as  good  for  you  as 
their  best  is  for  them. 

Remember  the  boy's  rule  for  learning  to  skate — 
"Get  up  every  time  you  fall  down."  Louisa  Alcott, 
whose  books  you  love,  was  once  very  poor.  When 
she  offered  the  manuscript  of  her  first  book  to  the 
publishers,  they  sent  it  back  and  advised  her  to  stick 
to  her  teaching.  We  are  told  that  she  wrote  An  Old 
Fashioned  Girl  with  her  "left  hand  in  a  sling,  one 
foot  up,  head  aching,  and  no  voice."  But  she  worked 
away  until  she  had  earned  two  hundred  thousand 
dollars  by  her  pen,  it  is  said,  and  lifted  her  family  out 
of  poverty  into  independence.  The  waves  had  gained 
admission  by  constant  beating. 

My  little  friends,  the  kite  flies  high  because  the 
string  holds  it  down.  The  bird  is  able  to  fly  because 
the  air  offers  resistance  to  its  wings.  If  there  were 
no  resisting  air,  the  bird  would  drop.  So  we  must 
learn  to  rise  by  virtue  of  difficulties,  to  get  ahead  by 
climbing  over  obstacles,  to  succeed  by  using  the  tools 
that  are  near.     A  few  months  ago  there  was  a  great 


LITTLE  WAVES  231 

deal  of  sickness  in  Pittsburg.  Typhoid  fever  and 
diphtheria  were  raging.  A  young  maji  trained  by 
science,  who  beheved,  as  most  scientists  now  do,  that 
the  germs  of  diseases  are  conveyed  in  drinking-water, 
came  to  think  that  they  might  be  filtered  out  of  the 
water  by  passing  it  through  sand  of  a  cer- 
tain grade  and  in  a  certain  fashion.  Ac- 
cordingly, he  and  some  other  young  men  raised 
seven  or  eight  hundred  dollars  and  erected  a  house  in 
the  corner  of  a  church  lot  where  they  constructed  an 
experimental  filter.  They  looked  about  and  found 
the  right  kind  of  sand  right  there  in  Pittsburg, 
arranged  their  reservoir  according  to  the  most  ap- 
proved pattern,  and  then  turned  in  the  water 
and  let  the  people  in  the  neighborhood  carry 
it  away  for  drinking  purposes  as  it  came  out 
below.  Every  day  these  young  men  would  go 
to  their  little  laboratory  and  examine  the  raw  water 
as  it  went  in  and  the  filtered  water  as  it  came  out, 
and  carefully  note  how  large  a  percentage  of  the 
microbes  were  taken  out  in  the  process  of  filtration. 
At  first  the  papers  made  fun  of  them,  and  citizens 
laughed  at  them.  But  statistics  proved  the  sound- 
ness of  their  theory,  and  poor  people  came  daily  to 
carry  away  the  pure  water.  Then  the  doctors  became 
interested,  the  board  of  health  looked  into  the  matter, 
and  the  common  council  began  to  consider  the  problem 
of  building  great  sand  filters  to  purify  the  water  for 
the  citizens  of  Pittsburg. 

These  young  men  did  not  go  to  Palestine  for  their 


232  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

sand,  no  more  did  they  try  to  bring"  Jordan  water  to 
Pittsburg;  but  they  took  the  common,  muddy  water 
of  the  Ohio  or  the  Alleghany,  and  they  ran  it  through 
home  sand,  Pittsburg  sand,  thereby  proving  how  close 
within  their  reach  was  the  means  of  health.  So  let 
your  quest  be  to  utilize  the  things  that  are  near  at 
hand.  Do  not  try  to  evade  the  solid  rock,  and  do  not 
despise  the  "little  wave,"  but  let  it  beat  against  the 
great  obstacles,  and  you  will  find  admission  there. 

I  have  talked  about  the  wave  and  the  rock,  but  I 
have  not  dwelt  upon  the  "thousand  years."  Let  us 
take  this  thought  for  our  "lastly."  Oh,  children,  it  is 
great  to  work  on  long  lines,  great  to  think  long 
thoughts,  great  to  be  able  to  act  independently  of 
"quick  returns"  or  cheap  success.  Robert  Browning, 
in  his  "Grammarian's  Funeral,"  sang  of  a  patient 
scholar  who  died  before  he  had  accomplished  his  task, 
one  who  seemed  to  have  failed  because  he  worked  for 
ends  so  high  that  they  were  beyond  his  reach : 

Oh,   if   we   draw   a   circle   premature, 

Heedless  of  far  gain, 
Greedy  for  quick  returns  of  profit,  sure, 

Bad  is  our  bargain ! 

That  low  man  seeks  a  little  thing  to  do, 

Sees  it  and  does  it : 
This  high  man,  with  a  great  thing  to  pursue, 

Dies  ere  he  knows  it. 

That  low  man  goes  on  adding  one  to  one, 
His  hundred's  soon  hit : 


LITTLE  WAVES  233 

This  high  man,  aiming  at  a  million, 
Misses  an  unit. 

IT-  ■ 

That,  has  the  world  here — should  he  need  the  next, 

Let  the  world  mind  him ! 
This,  throws  himself  on  God,  and  unperplext 

Seeking  shall  find  him. 

The  same  poet  said,  "Better  fail  in  the  high  aim  than 
vulgarly  succeed  in  the  low  aim."  Live  for  high 
things.  Work  on  long  lines.  Do  not  spend  your  pre- 
cious life  for  cheap  things  and  near  success. 

One  day,  many  years  ago,  as  I  w^as  sitting  at  my 
table,  soon  after  my  arrival  in  Chicago,  there  came 
through  the  window  the  clear  notes  of  a  bugle,  than 
which  there  are  none  more  inspiring.  It  sounded 
some  of  the  old  calls  which  I  had  learned  to  obey  in 
army  days.  It  brought  before  my  mind's  eye  pic- 
tures that  had  well  nigh  faded  away;  I  saw  moving 
columns,  waving  banners.  I  heard  the  clatter  of 
cavalry  sabers  and  the  rattle  of  artillery  wheels,  and 
my  heart  was  big  with  memories  of  the  great  strug- 
gle and  its  high  results.  Once  more  the  notes  came, 
now  farther  down  the  street,  and  I  thought,  "There 
is  some  battalion  moving,  a  military  column  is  pass- 
ing by,  some  parade  or  escort."  I  seized  my  hat,  and, 
like  a  boy,  hurried  around  the  corner  in  quest  of 
marching  men.  But  I  saw  no  army,  I  could  catch 
no  glimpse  of  a  flag.  Again  the  bugle  sounded,  now 
around  another  corner  I  pursued  it,  when,  lo !  I  found 
that  the  bugle  was  being  blown  by  a  popcorn  man. 
How   often   have   I   been   reminded   of   the   popcorn 


234  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

bugler.  When  I  hear  an  appeal  to  high  sentiments 
for  cheap  things,  great  phrases  used  to  justify  small 
purposes,  the  inspiration  of  high  principles  invoked 
for  petty  ends,  as  when  selfish  and  scheming  poli- 
ticians appeal  to  the  American  flag  in  justification  of 
their  "ward  tricks"  and  partisan  schemes ;  when  the 
great  words  of  religion,  God,  spirit,  soul,  and  duty 
are  used  to  justify  bigotry,  narrowness,  and  selfish- 
ness; when  in  the  name  of  religion  and  morality, 
men  and  women  work  for  little  sects  and  selfish  church 
schemes,  excuse  loyalty  to  small  things  and  petty 
names  because  large  things  and  great  hopes  are  so 
far  away,  let  us  prefer  to  work  rather  for  the  things 
that  seem  impossible,  for  the  good  that  seems  out  of 
reach.  Let  us  believe  in  the  impracticable  and  work 
for  what  is  called  the  impossible,  resting  secure  in  the 
truth  of  our  motto. 

No  rock  so  hard  but  that  a  little  wave 
May  beat  admission  in  a  thousand  years. 


VICTORIES 


ARMAGEDDON 

Marching  down  to  Armageddon — 

Brothers,  stout  and  strong! 
Let  us  cheer  the  way  we  tread  on 

With  a  soldier's  song! 
Faint  we  by  the  weary  road, 

Or  fall  we  in  the  rout. 
Dirge  or  Paean,  Death  or  Triumph! — 

Let  the  song  ring  out! 

We  are  they  who  scorn  the  scorners — 

Love  the  lovers — hate 
None  within  the  world's  four  corners — 

All  must  share  one  fate ; 
We  are  they  whose  common  banner 

Bears  no  badge  nor  sign, 
Save  the  Light  which  dyes  it  white — 
The  Hope  that  makes  it  shine. 

We  are  they  whose  bugle  rings. 

That  all  the  wars  may  cease; 
We  are  they  will  pay  the  Kings 

Their  cruel  price  for  Peace; 
We  are  they  whose  steadfast  watchword 

Is  what  Christ  did  teach, — 
"Each  man  for  his  Brother  first — 

And  Heaven,  then,  for  each." 

We  are  they  who  will  not  falter — 

Many  sivofds  or  few — 
Till  we  make  this  Earth  the  altar 

Of  a  worship  new; 
We  are  they  who  will  not  take 
From  palace,  priest,  or  code, 
A  meaner  law  than  "Brotherhood" — 
A  lower  Lord  than  God. 

— Edwin    Arnold 


XIII 
VICTORIES 

Be  ashamed  to  die  until  you  have  won  some  victory  for 
humanity. — Horace  Mann 

These  were  the  closing  words  in  the  baccalaureate 
address  of  the  great  Horace  Mann  to  the  last  class 
which  was  graduated  at  Antioch  College  under  his 
administration.  It  was  in  1859.  The  next  day  after  the 
notable  address,  the  great  teacher  lay  almost  speech- 
less in  a  darkened  room.  The  fire  of  the  brain  had 
blazed  up  into  a  consuming  agony.  In  a  few  days  he 
lay  tossing  in  a  fever  that  was  to  be  his  last.  The 
weather  was  hot  and  dry.  Everything  lay  parched 
and  thirsting.  When  the  rain  came  he  called  it  "heav- 
enly music,"  and  whispered,  "I  am  making  agricul- 
tural calculations.  I  cannot  help  it."  The  silence 
deepened.  The  college  gate  was  tied  back  that  its 
swing  might  not  disturb  him,  but  the  end  was  fast 
approaching,  and  with  his  head  "hot  as  a  cannon  ball" 
he  gathered  about  him  his  faithful  friends  and  stu- 
dents. His  great  words  were,  "Man,  Duty,  God!" 
To  his  friend  and  pastor.  Rev.  Eli  Fay,  he  said, 
"Preach  God's  laws !  Preach  them!  Preach  them.'  ! 
PREACH  THEM  !  !  !"  And  so  the  candle  that 
was  lit  at  both  ends  early  in  life,  that  had  burned 
intensely  with  the  light  that  penetrated  dark  places, 
flickered  and  went  out. 

On  the  humble  granite  shaft  that  rises  in  the 
237 


238  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

campus  of  Antioch  College,  at  Yellow  Springs,  Ohio, 
there  is  engraved  the  simple  inscription, 

Be  ashamed  to  die  until  you  have  won  some  victory  for 
humanity. 

It  is  my  purpose  to  indicate  a  few  ways  in  which  it 
is  possible  for  us  all  to  win  victories  for  humanity; 
for  these  victories  are  not  alone  for  the  masterful, 
the  great  conquerors  who  rise  above  the  common 
levels  as  the  peaks  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  rise  above 
our  western  plains.  There  are  victories  for  the 
weak,  triumphs  for  the  humble,  achievements  pos- 
sible to  common  men  and  common  women,  splendid 
conquests  within  reach  of  boys  and  girls. 

The  first  victories  I  would  speak  of  are  the  victor- 
ies over  nature,  the  conquests  of  matter.  The  forces 
of  nature  may  be  likened  to  wild  and  fiery  horses, 
which  man  may  harness,  train,  and  drive.  They  bear 
us  along  in  the  ways  we  should  go,  they  serve  us,  they 
help  us,  they  are  indispensable.  So  long  as  we  can 
drive  and  guide  them,  they  are  the  allies  of  civiliza- 
tions, the  servants  of  religion,  the  helpers  of  morality, 
but  when  we  lose  control  of  them  we  are  in  danger 
of  being  trampled  under  their  feet,  or  mangled  by  the 
wheels  of  the  chariot  they  draw. 

Professor  N.  S.  Shaler,  of  Harvard  University, 
in  his  delightful  book  entitled  The  Domestication  of 
Animals,  shows  that  man's  progress  has  been  largely 
dependent  upon  the  co-operation  which  he  has 
received  from  our  poor  relations  of  the  farmyard. 
Man's  victory  over  the  animal  world  has  brought  him 


VICTORIES  239 

the  service  of  the  dog,  the  ox,  the  horse,  the  sheep, 
the  camel,  and  the  elephant.  One  of  his  greatest  and 
earliest  victories  was  that  of  converting  some  sly, 
thieving  enemy  of  man,  an  animal  probably  akin  to 
the  wolf  and  the  fox,  into  the  dog,  the  friend  of  man, 
the  companion  of  children,  the  guardian  of  the  home 
and  the  flocks.  This  victory  over  nature  was  won  so 
early  in  the  career  of  the  race  that  science  scarcely 
finds  any  trace  of  primitive  man  where  he  does  not 
also  find  evidence  that  the  dog  was  his  companion, 

"He  who  makes  two  blades  of  grass  grow  where 
one  grew  before  is  a  benefactor  of  the  race."  This  is 
an  old,  good,  and  true  saying.  Perhaps  the  first  sug- 
gestion of  such  wisdom  came  to  us  through  the  great 
Zoroaster,  the  prophet  of  labor,  the  man  who  in  the 
name  of  religion  first  insisted  on  the  piety  of  tilling 
the  soil,  of  house-building,  and  settled  home-making. 
There  is  a  wild  rice  that  grows  in  our  shallow  lakes, 
and  there  are  grasses  that  produce  seed  somewhat 
related  to  the  oats,  barley,  rye,  and  wheat  which  the 
farmer  raises,  but  they  produce  no  more  than  a 
limited  supply  of  food  for  the  birds.  Man  can 
scarcely  thrive  on  wild  rice  and  wild  millet,  the  wild 
plum  and  the  crab  apple,  even  when  such  meager  fare 
is  eked  out  with  fish  caught  in  the  stream,  deer 
entangled  in  the  snare,  and  birds  brought  down  by  the 
arrow.  It  took  human  skill  and  industry  to  domesti- 
cate and  develop  the  wild  grasses  until  they  should 
yield  the  grain  that  may  be  manufactured  into  flour 
and  converted  into  bread.     The  possibilities  of  nature 


240  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

are  still  unexhausted,  there  are  great  fields  uncon- 
quered,  splendid  forces  untamed. 

Franklin  and  Morse  captured  the  lightning  and 
tamed  and  harnessed  it  so  that  we  drive  it  and  force 
it  to  draw  our  loads,  run  upon  our  errands,  and 
carry  our  messages.  Watt  and  Stevenson  conquered 
the  force  in  the  tea-kettle,  and  we  compel  it  to  drive 
our  great  iron  ships  across  the  ocean  in  the  face  of 
wind  and  tide  and  drag  the  great  railroad  trains  from 
shore  to  shore.  And  do  we  not  now  stand  on  the 
brink  of  mystery  land?  From  laboratory  and  observa- 
tory, from  college  and  workshop,  from  the  careful 
observer  in  the  orchard  to  the  learned  professor  in  the 
college,  there  runs  a  hushed  whisper  of  new  marvels 
about  to  be  discovered,  new  forces  almost  within 
reach,  fresh  surprises  almost  ready.  It  is  but  yester- 
day that  Roentgen  enabled  us  to  look  at  the  bones  in 
our  own  hands  and  to  see  through  an  oak  plank  or  a 
book.  Today  the  electrician  is  ready  to  send  a  mes- 
sage to  a  friend  in  mid-ocean,  spelling  the  message  on 
the  instrument  at  this  end  of  the  line,  while  the  great, 
throbbing  responsive  heart  of  the  air  carries  and 
delivers  it  to  the  instrument,  letter  to  letter  and  sign 
to  sign  as  it  is  spelled  here.  Oh,  there  are  still  great 
victories  to  be  won  over  nature  in  the  interest  of 
humanity. 

Some  time  ago  I  attended  the  commencement  exer- 
cises of  one  of  the  great  technical  schools  of  the 
country.  Here  one  of  the  graduates  exhibited  and 
explained  an  apparatus  constructed  by  himself  and  a 


VICTORIES  241 

classmate  for  measuring  the  electric  "permeability"  of 
various  substances.  What  is  that?  You  do  not  know. 
Neither  do  I,  but  I  could  see  by  the  liglit  on  the  boy's 
face  and  the  pride  of  the  teachers  that  a  victory  had 
been  won  over  nature  in  the  interests  of  humanity,  a 
victory  that  would  help  man  climb  into  the  saddle  and 
save  himself  from  being  trampled  underfoot  and 
run  over  by  the  giant  forces  of  this  world. 

Next  came  a  young  woman  who  gave  us  the 
result  of  a  study  of  the  different  yeast  cakes  obtain- 
able in  the  market.  For  three  months  she  had  worked 
with  solvent  and  microscope  over  the  seven  different 
kinds  of  yeast  with  which  the  women  of  that  town 
made  bread,  and  she  told  these  mothers  and  house- 
keepers of  the  dangerous  bacteria  that  she  found  in  the 
yeast  cakes,  all  of  which  tended  to  make  sour  bread, 
sick  stomachs,  bad  tempers,  and  discouraged  spirits. 
I  could  not  understand  all  the  terms  which  this  bright 
as  well  as  sweet  girl  graduate  used;  I  could  not 
always  tell  what  she  was  talking  about;  but  I  could 
see  very  clearly  that  there  in  her  laboratory  she  had 
been  winning  victories  for  humanity,  and  when  the 
time  comes  for  her  to  die  she  need  not  be  ashamed, 
because  she  has  conquered  some  ignorance,  she  has 
won  a  victory  over  filth  and  fraud.  Surely  the  good 
Father  of  us  all  has  living  laurels  to  deck  the  brow  of 
the  school  girl  who  wins  a  triumph  in  the  interests  of 
good  bread,  healthy  digestion,  a  cheerful  temper,  and 
the  high  courage  that  springs  therefrom. 

Another  graduate  told  us  about  the  polluted  waters 


242         ^  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

of  the  Wabash  River  after  it  has  flowed  through 
what  ought  to  be  the  clean  and  wise  as  well  as  beauti- 
ful city  of  Lafayette.  Above  the  city  he  had  found 
the  water  unpolluted,  fresh,  clean,  health-giving;  but 
many  careful  analyses  and  months  of  work  with  the 
microscope  had  enabled  him  to  demonstrate,  with  the 
aid  of  charts,  that  the  water,  below  the  city  was 
charged  with  the  germs  of  disease  and  pestilence,  and 
that  typhoid,  diphtheria,  scarlet  fever,  and  cholera 
journey  in  the  waters  between  the  beautiful  banks  of 
the  Wabash  below  the  city  of  Lafayette;  and  he 
showed  further  that  this  is  because  the  citizens  empty 
their  sewage,  unload  their  filth-carts,  deposit  the 
sweepings  of  their  streets,  and  tumble  their  dead  dogs 
and  horses  into  the  Wabash.  That  boy,  fresh  in  his 
young  manhood,  in  the  glory  of  his  first  graduation, 
stood  confirmed  as  one  of  the  helpers  of  mankind. 
He  had  wrung  from  nature  her  secret;  he  had 
achieved  a  "victory  for  humanity."  If  need  be  he 
could  die  without  a  blush,  for  he  had  not  lived  in 
vain. 

If  it  is  not  for  you  to  raise  colts  and  train  them,  to 
cause  orchards  to  grow  where  before  were  under- 
brush and  thicket;  if  it  is  not  for  you  to  change 
swamps  into  clover  fields  and  drive  Jersey  cows  into 
a  paradise  for  cattle,  thus  helping  feed  the  world 
with  sweet  butter  and  fresh  milk;  if  you  cannot  add 
to  the  petals  of  the  wild  rose  the  reduplication  and 
intensified  color  of  the  American  Beauty;  if  you  can- 
not supplant  bad  bread  with  good,  or  improve  the 


VICTORIES  243 

quality  of  v/ater  in  your  hydrants;  if  there  are  no 
victories  over  material  nature  which  you  may  con- 
sciously win  for  humanity,  there  remam  the  possibili- 
ties of  still  nobler  victories  over  human  nature;  for 
it  is  as  true  now  as  in  the  Bible  days  that — 

He  that  is  slow  to  anger  is  better  than  the  mighty, 
And  he  that  ruleth  his  spirit  than  he  that  taketh  a  city. 

Every  victory  over  self  is  a  victory  for  humanity. 
No  exaltation  is  more  fine  or  more  needed  than  an 
exaltation  of  the  will  over  one's  desires  and  passions. 
We  need  to  conquer  fashion,  false  custom,  and  bad 
habits.  A  breach  made  into  the  walls  behind  which 
lurk  these  great  enemies  of  progress  and  purity  weak- 
ens the  fortress  and  hastens  the  day  when  humanity 
will  triumph  over  them.  What  are  the  great  foes 
which  threaten  society  today?  Conventionality,  big- 
otry, pride,  and  love  of  ease.  While  these  rule  we  are 
always  poor,  when  these  are  conquered  we  are  always 
rich.  When  a  wealthy  man  begged  of  Socrates  to 
accept  the  permanent  hospitality  of  his  elegant  home, 
asking,  "why  need  you  continue  to  live  in  this 
meager  way,  with  these  few  comforts  and  humble 
surroundings?"  Socrates  replied,  "Meal  can  be  pur- 
chased at  half  a  peck  for  a  penny.  There  is  good 
water  in  the  brook  free  to  all.  These  give  to  me  the 
needed  sustenance.  Why  should  I  not  continue  to 
teach  the  youths  of  Athens?" 

When  Benjamin  Franklin  was  a  poor  printer  in 
Philadelphia,  fighting  a  hard  battle  to  keep  his  first 
newspaper  alive,  a  gentleman  called  with  an  article 


244  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

for  whose  publication  he  promised  to  pay  liberally, 
at  the  same  time  hinting  of  further  pay  for  further 
service  of  this  kind.  "Call  tomorrow  morning  and  I 
will  give  you  my  answer,"  said  the  young  and  strug- 
gling printer.  At  the  time  appointed  the  man  came 
in  the  pride  of  his  wealth  and  confident  that  he 
was  needed  by  the  printer.  "I  have  read  your 
article,  sir,"  said  young  Franklin.  "It  is  a  scurrilous 
article.  It  will  do  no  good  to  anyone,  not  even  to 
yourself,  and  it  will  do  much  harm  by  stirring  up  bad 
feeling  and  injuring  the  innocent.  Last  night  I 
bought  a  loaf  of  bread  for  a  penny  upon  which  with  a 
mug  of  water  I  supped  bountifully,  after  which  I 
rolled  myself  in  my  overcoat  and  slept  on  the  floor  of 
my  printing-office.  This  morning  with  a  fresh  mug 
of  water  and  what  was  left  of  the  loaf,  I  breakfasted, 
and  am  in  good  health  and  strength.  I  see  no  reason 
why  I  should  dirty  my  hands  with  your  dirty  money. 
I  decline  the  article,  sir." 

When  a  young  man,  Stonewall  Jackson,  the  hero 
of  the  Confederacy,  lived  a  whole  year  on  buttermilk 
and  stale  bread,  and  thereby  conquered  his  great 
enemy  dyspepsia. 

The  power  of  Von  Moltke,  the  great  German 
general,  was  explained  by  a  friend  by  the  fact  that 
"he  could  hold  his  tongue  in  seven  languages." 

Said  Samuel  J.  May  to  a  man  who  fain  would 
justify  his  drinking  habit,  "If  it  is  a  small  sacrifice  to 
do  without  your  wine,  you  ought  to  do  it  for  the  sake 


VICTORIES  245 

of  others.  If  it  is  a  great  sacrifice  to  do  without  your 
wine,  you  ought  to  do  it  for  your  own  sake." 

Said  Agassiz,  "I  have  no  time  to  make  money." 

When  a  youth,  Faraday  had  to  choose  between  a 
fortune  and  a  studious  Hfe.     He  chose  poverty. 

When  a  young  rival,  in  a  moment  of  jealousy  and 
anger,  struck  Michael  Angelo  in  the  face  with  such 
force  that,  as  the  young  man  himself  expressed  it 
later  to  Cellini,  he  felt  bones  and  cartilage  crush 
under  his  fist  like  a  biscuit,  Michael  Angelo  retorted 
with  the  statement,  "You  will  be  remembered  only 
as  the  man  who  broke  my  nose." 

"Oh,  Diamond,  Diamond,  you  little  know  the  mis- 
chief you  have  wrought!"  said  Sir  Isaac  Newton  to 
his  pet  dog  who,  by  upsetting  a  taper,  had  set  fire  to 
a  sheet  containing  the  results  of  most  laborious  calcu- 
lations; and  then  he  quietly  sat  down  to  go  over 
again  the  tedious  and  painful  mathematical  toil. 

You  see  how  easy  it  is  to  pile  illustration  on  illus- 
tration to  show  that  a  victory  over  self  is  a  victory  for 
humanity.  The  only  triumphs  that  bring  permanent 
strength  are  the  triumphs  over  self.  How  it  behooves 
us,  then,  to  struggle  for  the  victories  of  Sir  Galahad, 
Whose  strength  was  as  the  strength  of  ten 
Because  his  heart  was  pure, 

to  seek  the  triumphs  of  Felix  Holt  in  George  Eliot's 
story,  who  dared  "follow  those  who  did  not  follow 
fashion." 

Boys,  dare  you  do  the  simple  brave  things  for 
which  the  other  boys  will  laugh  at  you — refuse  the 


246  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

cigarette,  renounce  the  expensive  habit,  wear  the 
plain  clothes  that  you  can  pay  for  and  be  satisfied 
with  the  plain  speech  that  is  sanctioned  by  the  dic- 
tionary and  that  brings  no  blush  to  the  cheek  of 
mother  or  sister? 

Girls,  dare  you  live  on  that  high  plane  where  the 
dress  is  sensible,  the  speech  simple,  the  habit  non-con- 
ventional and  unfashionable,  when  common  sense  so 
requires?  The  girl  who  today  gives  room  in  her 
shoes  for  her  toes  and  does  not  insult  the  dignity  and 
beauty  of  her  brow  with  the  dead  bird's  wing,  wins  a 
victory  for  humanity  which  will  help  make  death 
beds  comfortable. 

My  young  friends,  "be  ashamed  to  die  until  you 
have  won  some  victory"  over  self  for  humanity's 
sake! 

But  I  want  to  place  the  emphasis  where  Horace 
Mann  placed  it,  on  the  word  "humanity,"  and  ask 
you,  my  young  friends,  to  begin  early  to  cultivate 
that  consciousness  of  humanity  which  will  make  the 
plural  pronoun  "we"  and  "ours"  more  familiar  to 
your  aspirations  and  your  purposes  than  the  singular 
pronouns  "I"  and  "mine."  "Be  ashamed  to  die  until 
you  have  won  some  victory" — not  for  yourself,  not 
for  your  family,  not  for  your  church,  your  city,  state, 
or  country,  but  for  humanity.  The  religious  advice 
under  which  Horace  Mann  grew  up  was  emphatically, 
"Save  your  own  soul,  make  your  own  salvation  and 
calling  sure.  Escape  hell  and  win  heaven  for  your- 
self; that  is  your  first  business,  your  primal  thought." 


VICTORIES  247 

But  Horace  Mann  mellowed  and  ripened  under  the 
larger  inspirations  that  taught  Whittier  to  say, 

The  soul  is  lost  that's  saved  alone. 
Horace  Mann  helped  to  develop  the  piety  in  which 
the  truly  devout  most  delight,  the  piety  which  says : 
"There  is  no  individual  salvation.  There  is  no  heaven 
for  the  foremost  soul  while  there  is  left  a  solitary 
soul  in  that  outer  darkness  where  'there  is  weeping 
and  gnashing  of  teeth.'  "  No  matter  how  well  folded 
the  ninety-and-nine  may  be,  the  Master  is  out  wander- 
ing among  the  hills  in  search  of  the  one  stray  sheep, 
and  his  heart  is  unsatisfied  until  it  is  found.  The 
bars  will  be  kept  open  until  the  last  comes  in.  Horace 
Mann's  great  message  must  be  interpreted  at  its  high- 
est. It  can  mean  nothing  meaner  or  smaller  than  the 
great  principles  taught  by  Sally  Pratt  McLean  Greene 
in  the  simple  dialect  poem  which  we  have  all  learned 
to  love: 

De  Massa  ob  de  Sheepfol', 

Dat  guard  de  sheepfol'  bin, 

Look  out  in  de  gloomerin'  meadows, 

Whar  de  long  night  rain  begin — 

So  he  call  to  de  hirelin'  Shepa'd, 

Is  my  sheep,  is  dey  all  come  in? 

O,  den  says  the  hirelin'  Shepa'd, 
Dey's  some,  dey's  black  and  thin. 
And  some,  dey's  po'  ol'  wedda's 
But  de  res'  dey's  all  brung  in, 
But  de  res'  dey's  all  brung  in, 

Den  de  Massa  of  de  sheepfol, 
Dat  guard  the  sheepfol'  bin, 


248  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Goes    down   in   the   gloomerin'   meadows 
Whar  de  long  night  rain  begin — 
So  he  le'  down  de  ba's  ob  de  sheepfol', 
Calling  sof,  Come  in,  Come  in, 
Calling  sof,  Come  in.  Come  in, 

Den  up  t'ro  de  gloomerin'  meadows 
T'ro  de  col'  night  rain  and  win'. 
And  up  t'ro  de  gloomerin'  rain'paf, 
Whar  de  sleet  fa'  pie'cin'  thin, 
De  po'  los'  sheep  ob  de  sheepfol' 
Dey  all  comes  gadderin'  in ; 
De  po'  los'  sheep  ob  de  sheepfol' 
Dey  all  comes  gadderin'  in. 

The  message  of  Horace  Mann  calls  upon  you, 
young  men  and  women,  to  put  a  nobler  meaning  into 
the  word  "society ;"  it  summons  you  out  of  the  "Soci- 
ety" that  delights  in  a  capital  "S,"  the  "Society"  that 
is  the  cause  of  so  much  fever  among  women  and  so 
much  financial  anxiety  among  men,  into  society  in  the 
higher  sense,  the  original  sense,  that  of  socius — 
sharing,  partaking,  a  partner,  a  fellow,  an  ally.  This 
is  the  society  which  is  the  fabric  of  civilization,  woven 
with  the  web  of  law  and  the  woof  of  experience,  a 
fabric  in  which  you  and  I  and  everybody  are  indi- 
vidual threads,  weak  and  inadequate  when  taken 
alone,  but  taken  together,  forming  the  priceless  tex- 
ture into  which  are  woven  the  great  figures  of  history 
and  the  divine  element  in  humanity.  Let  us  be 
ashamed  to  die  until  we  have  won  some  victory  for 
humanity. 

When  war  was  raging  in  the  Crimea  and  cholera 


VICTORIES  249 

was  adding  its  devastation  to  the  work  of  the  cannon, 
Florence  Nightingale  went  with  her  thirty-four  assist- 
ant women  nurses,  caused  the  pestilential  swamps 
where  the  hospitals  were  located  to  be  drained,  estab- 
lished her  laundries  and  invalid  kitchens,  arranged 
for  the  entertainment  of  the  convalescents,  and 
changed  that  hell  into  a  heaven. 

This  is  the  testimony  of  a  private  soldier :  "Before 
she  came  there  was  such  cussin'  and  swearin'  and 
after  that  it  was  as  holy  as  a  church."  But  not  all 
this  represents  the  highest  victory  won  by  Florence 
Nightingale  for  humanity.  When  she  came  back,  a 
grateful  English  people  showed  their  gratitude  by 
presenting  to  her  a  large  purse  of  money  which  she 
immediately  used  in  establishing  what  was,  I  believe, 
the  first  regular  school  for  the  training  of  women 
nurses  in  the  world.  In  these  graduation  days, 
women  are  numbered  by  the  hundreds  who  receive 
their  diplomas  from  training-schools  for  nurses,  and 
go  out  into  the  world  to  represent  the  true  "Christian 
science,"  for  in  them  science  joins  hand  with  religion, 
knowledge  comes  into  partnership  with  piety,  and  the 
trained  hand  lends  itself  to  the  enlightened  mind  as 
well  as  to  the  consecrated  heart  of  the  trained  nurse, 
the  woman  whose  very  garb  is  a  badge  of  honor, 
carrying  with  it  a  grace  and  winsomeness  which  the 
self-seeking  lady  of  the  drawing-room  and  the  club 
has  not  money  enough  to  buy  from  a  Parisian  mil- 
liner. Her  greatest  victory  for  humanity  is  found 
in  the  establishment  of  these  schools,  which  repre- 


250  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

sent  the  topmost  buds  on  the  great  tree  of  evolution, 
at  whose  roots  is  the  "medicine  man"  with  his  super- 
stitious mummery  and  his  mystical  black  art. 

Following  in  this  holy  line  of  the  unvowed  sister- 
hood of  mercy  comes  the  irrepressible  Mother  Bicker- 
dyke  of  own  Civil  War,  who  out-generaled  the  gen- 
erals and  became  at  once  the  friend  and  counselor  of 
the  humblest  private  and  the  commander-in-chief. 
She  won  a  victory  for  humanity  because  she  worked 
not  for  herself  but  for  others. 

And  there  is  still  another  woman  to  be  mentioned 
in  this  connection.  Clara  Barton,  the  demure  little 
nurse  in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  lived  to  win  the 
greatest  diplomatic  victory  of  her  generation  when  in 
the  Geneva  Convention  she  did  so  much  in  organizing 
the  International  Association  of  the  Red  Cross  and 
securing  for  it  official  recognition  from  the  great 
powers  of  Europe  and  America. 

The  time  was  when  the  lovers  of  nature  and  of 
beauty  were  content  with  urging  the  farmer  to  plant 
shade  trees  in  his  front  yard,  to  beautify  his  own 
garden  with  fruit  trees  and  blossoming  shrubs;  but 
now  it  is  a  mean  and  poor  farmer  who  stops  here. 
The  public  demand  is  that  he  plant  shrubs  and  flowers 
along  the  highway  for  the  benefit  of  the  public,  and 
for  this  alone  will  the  public  give  thanks.  A  mean 
man  will  put  a  water  tank  in  his  barnyard  for  the 
benefit  of  his  own  stock,  but  the  noble  man  carries 
the  water  to  the  roadside  and  there  erects  his  water-, 
ing-trough  for  the  benefit  of  the  other  man's  horse 


VICTORIES  '251 

that  pants  feverishly  under  his  heavy  load,  going 
from,  the  farmer  knows  not  where,  to  the  farmer 
knows  not  whither. 

Thus  far  the  quest  for  wealth  has  enlisted  the 
energies  of  our  young  men  and  women.  Let  this  go 
on,  but  to  you,  young  friends,  let  me  say  that  your 
place  in  the  world  and  your  peace  of  mind  in  life  or 
death  will  not  be  determined  by  the  amount  of  wealth 
you  accumulate  for  yourself,  but  by  your  contribu- 
tions to  the  commonwealth  of  the  world.  You  should 
hold  in  highest  esteem  your  title  to  those  things  that 
you  own  in  common  with  all  others.  The  school 
house,  from  the  humblest  log  building  in  the  clear- 
ings up  to  the  noblest  building  of  the  state  university, 
the  post-office,  the  public  library,  the  museum,  the 
parks,  the  highways  and  the  streets,  belong  to  you 
and  to  me.  This  is  "property"  which  makes  the  poor- 
est rich,  and  without  which  the  richest  would  be  poor 
and  helpless  indeed.  Let  our  struggle  be  to  increase 
this  commonwealth,  to  guard  its  interests,  and  conse- 
crate its  resources. 

Under  the  old  ethics  it  was  left  for  individual 
enterprise  and  speculation  to  span  the  river  with  the 
bridge  for  the  use  of  which  the  public  would  evermore 
pay  toll  to  private  capitalist.  But  under  the  new 
ethics,  the  public  builds  the  bridge  for  the  benefit  of 
the  public,  and  it  becomes  a  free  highway  to  humanity 
for  evermore.  Our  immediate  forefathers  traveled 
along  turnpikes  and  plank  roads  owned  by  private 
corporations  and  paid  their  toll  for  every  mile  they 


252  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

traveled.  Now  the  toll  gates  have,  for  the  most  part, 
become  a  thing  of  the  past,  and  wealth  invested  in 
turnpikes  has  become  common  wealth.  The  tramp 
travels  the  highways  as  freely  as  the  millionaire.  In 
the  future  we  must  tremendously  augment  this  com- 
mon wealth;  and  may  the  dying  message  of  Horace 
Mann  inspire  you,  my  young  friends,  to  make  vic- 
tories in  the  interest  of  humanity  in  this  direction.  I 
believe  that  the  time  is  coming  when  steam  cars  and 
electric  ways  will  represent  a  part  of  the  common 
wealth  of  the  world  as  much  as  the  reclaimed  turn- 
pikes of  the  present,  and  when  winter  halls  and  other 
places  of  indoor  rendezvous  shall  become  as  much  a 
part  of  the  public  provision  for  the  comfort  of  the 
public  as  our  summer  parks  and  boulevards  are  today. 
You  must  help  win  these  victories  for  humanity.  The 
old  ethics  made  us  zealous  for  "Presbyterianism"  or 
"Unitarianism,"  developed  a  "Christian"  or  a  "Budd- 
hist" consciousness.  The  new  ethics  teaches  us  to 
despise  the  "isms"  that  divide,  to  respect  the  prin- 
ciples that  unite,  and  to  honor  the  church  of  the  people, 
built  by  the  people  and  for  the  people,  the  Cathedral 
of  Love,  however  humble  the  architecture,  the  Min- 
ister of  Humanity,  worthy  of  the  noblest  form  and 
most  permanent  interest. 

Let  my  last  and  most  potent  illustration  be  from 
the  great  prophet  of  the  public  schools  of  America, 
who  has  already  given  us  text  and  inspiration  for  our 
sermon.  In  the  address  in  which  we  found  our  text, 
he  said,   "Nothing   today   prevents   this   earth    from 


VICTORIES  253 

being  a  paradise  but  error  and  sin."  And  again,  "The 
judge  may  condemn  an  innocent  man,  but  posterity 
will  condemn  the  judge."  It  was  Horace  Mann  who, 
on  the  threshold  of  a  brilliant  career,  after  having  sat 
in  the  legislature  of  Massachusetts  for  eight  years, 
during  two  of  which  he  was  the  presiding  officer  of 
the  upper  house,  when  wealth,  honor,  and  ease  were 
within  his  reach,  gave  them  all  up,  tacked  on  his 
office  door  in  Boston  the  words  "to  let,"  and  adver- 
tised his  law  library  "for  sale"  in  order  that  he  might 
accept  the  secretaryship  of  the  Board  of  Education 
for  the  state  of  Massachusetts,  at  a  salary  of  fifteen 
hundred  dollars  a  year.  The  office  was  a  new  one, 
the  first  of  the  kind  in  the  United  States,  and  the 
"Board  of  Education"  was  created  through  his  own 
influence.  He  said  in  explanation,  "I  have  changed 
venue;  I  appeal  from  this  generation  to  the  next. 
Men  and  women  are  cast  iron.  Children  are  wax. 
Henceforth  I  work  for  the  children." 

And  so,  single  handed  and  alone,  he  went  into 
the  great  work  that  called  into  being  the  public-school 
"system"  of  America,  for,  although  there  were  public 
schools  before  the  days  of  Horace  Mann,  there  was 
no  public-school  system.  Normal  schools,  teachers' 
institutes,  district  libraries,  blackboards,  globes,  and 
other  apparatus  he  called  into  being.  He  lifted 
public-school  teaching  into  a  liberal  profession.  He 
opened  a  great  door  to  woman,  and  compelled  wealth, 
culture,  and  even  social  pretension  to  rejoice  in  the 
schools  that  were  indeed  common  schools. 


254  LOVE  AND^LOYALTY 

At  the  end  of  twelve  years  of  untiring  work,  John 
Quincy  Adams,  tne  great  and  noble,  fell  in  his  seat  in 
Congress,  and  Horace  Mann  was  called  to  occupy 
the  chair  that  had  never  been  dishonored  by  boodle 
or  self-seeking.  For  four  years  in  Washington  he 
made  himself  the  friend  of  the  friendless,  and  cham- 
pioned the  cause  of  the  down-trodden.  He  became 
the  orator  of  the  slave.  At  the  end  of  these  four 
years,  on  September  15,  1852,  he  was  nominated  as  a 
candidate  for  governor  of  Massachusetts,  and  the 
same  day  elected  president  of  an  unorganized  college 
in  an  obscure  district  in  what  was  then  the  "Far 
West."  On  the  one  hand  were  the  unquestioned 
honor  and  high  position  of  governor  of  the  great 
state  of  Massachusetts;  on  the  other  hand  the  obscu- 
rity, uncertainty,  and  poverty  of  an  untried  venture 
in  the  backwoods.  Which  would  he  take?  How 
would  he  choose? 

In  the  choice  itself  was  a  great  victory  for 
humanity.  He  chose  the  harder,  the  more  uncertain 
task.  He  said,  "Other  people  will  be  glad  to  be 
governors  of  the  state  of  Massachusetts,  but  not  many 
will  care  to  go  to  Ohio  and  try  to  realize  these  ideals 
which  I  have  so  much  at  heart."  And  so,  with  tears 
running  down  his  manly  cheeks,  he  left  his  Massa- 
chusetts home  to  become  the  president  of  Antioch 
College,  then  but  a  great  hope  planted  amid  the 
stumps  and  malaria  of  a  new  country.  Here  he  wel- 
comed his  first  class  before  the  roof  was  yet  on  the 
college  building.     Here  for  seven  years  he  worked  in 


VICTORIES  255 

the  interest  of  the  college  where  for  the  first  time 
many  great  interests  of  humanity  were  experiments,  a 
college  where  men  and  women  were  admitted  to 
equal  privileges,  where  black  and  white  had  equal 
rights,  and  where  no  creed  or  lack  of  creed  could  con- 
dition the  welcome,  the  fellowship,  or  the  standing  of 
a  student. 

Horace  Mann  died  with  Antioch  College  but  a 
struggling  school  in  the  wilderness.  Antioch  College 
is  still  living  from  hand  to  mouth,  a  school  poorly  sus- 
tained and  little  known,  but  his  triumph  is  written  in 
the  triumph  of  Cornell,  Leland  Stanford,  and  every 
non-sectarian,  co-educational  and  inter-racial  college 
in  America,  for  they  represent  the  public  spirit  that  at 
the  expense  of  the  public  would  make  a  free  highway 
for  all  the  children  of  the  state  to  travel  on  from  the 
kindergarten  to  the  highest  education  American  insti- 
tutions can  give. 

Horace  Mann  died  gloriously  because  he  had  lived 
to  win  many  a  victory  for  humanity.  I  can  wish  you 
no  higher  good  than  that  his  story  may  interpret  our 
text  and  that  the  text  may  become  a  guiding  inspira- 
tion to  the  end  of  life. 


THE  GAME  OF  LIFE 


10   VICTIS 

I  sing  the  hymn  of  the  conquered,  who  fell  in  the  Battle  of  Life, — 
The  hymn  of  the  wounded,  the  beaten,  who  died  overwhelmed  in  the 

strife ; 
Not    the   jubilant    song    of    the    victors,    for   whom    the    resounding 

acclaim 
Of  nations  was  lifted  in   chorus,  ivhose  brows  wore   the  chaplet   of 

fame. 
But  the  hymn  of  the  low  and  the  humble,  the  weary,  the  broken  in 

heart, 
Who  strove  and  who  failed,   acting  bravely   a  silent   and   desperate 

part ; 
Whose  youth  bore  no  flower  on  its  branches,  whose  hopes  burned  in 

ashes  azvay. 
From  whose  hand  slipped  the  prize  they  had  grasped  at,  who  stood 

at  the  dying  of  day 
With  the  wreck  of  their  lives  all  around  them,  unpitied,  unheeded, 

alone. 
With   Death   szvooping    down    o'er    their   failure,    and   all    but    their 

faith   overthroivn. 

While  the  voice  of  the  zvorld  shouts  its  chorus, — its  paean  for  those 

who  have  won ; 
While  the  trumpet  is  sounding  triumphant,  and  high   to   the  breeze 

and  the  sun 
Glad  banners  are  waving,  hands  clapping,  and  hurrying  feet 
Thronging      after   the   laurel-crozvned   victors,   I  stand   on    the   Held 

of  defeat. 
In  the  shadow,  with  those  who  have  fallen,  and  wounded,  and  dying, 

and  there 
Chant  a  requiem  low,  place  my   hand  on   their  pain-knotted   brows, 

breathe  a  prayer, 
Hold  the  hand  that  is  helpless,  and  whisper,  "They  only  the  victory 

win. 
Who   have  fought   the  good  fight,   and  have  vanquished   the  demon 

that  tempts  us  within; 
Who    have    held    to    their   faith   unseduced    by    the   prize    that    the 

world  holds  on  high; 
Who  have  darsd  for  a  high  cause  to  suffer,  resist,  fight, — if  need  be, 

to  die." 

Speak,    History!   who    are    life's   victors?      Unroll    thy    long   annals 

and  say. 
Are   they   those  zvhom   the  world   called   the  victors — who   won   the 

success  of  a  day? 
The  Martyrs,   or  Nero?     The  Spartans,  zvho   fell  at   Thermopylae's 

tryst, 
Or  the  Persians  and  Xerxes?     His  judges  or  Socrates?     Pilate  or 

Christ? 

— William  Wetmore  Story 


XIV 
THE  GAME  OF  LIFE 

Not  failure  but  low  aim  is  crime. — James  Russell  Lowell 

To  the  imagination  of  the  young,  life  presents 
itself  as  a  game,  a  happy  contest,  a  competitive  strug- 
gle to  win  a  prize.  Paul  compares  life  to  a  foot-race 
such  as  was  witnessed  in  the  Olympic  contests  of 
Greece,  where  the  runners,  stripped  of  all  incum- 
brances, strained  every  nerve  in  the  great  race  for 
which  they  had  spent  months  in  training  and  in  which 
they  hoped  to  win  national  renown.  So  important 
seemed  these  contests,  and  so  severe  was  the  train- 
ing required,  that  they  came  but  once  in  four  years, 
thus  marking  the  length  of  the  Greek  Olympiad.  In 
common  speech,  the  words  of  familiar  games  are 
unconsciously  used  to  describe  life  and  its  experiences. 
The  technical  terms  of  sport  have  become  the  slang 
terms  of  social  life;  men  talk  about  politicians  hav- 
ing their  "innings,"  of  men  being  made  to  "knuckle 
down"  in  business,  of  the  successful  man  as  "holding 
a  full  hand,"  of  the  cheated  man  as  having  been 
"euchered,"  of  a  baffled  man  as  being  "checkmated," 
and  of  a  sudden  defeat  as  a  "knockout." 

In  accordance  with  this  unconscious  habit  of  the 
mind,  James  Russell  Lowell,  in  the  poem  entitled  "An 
Autograph,"  compares  life  to  a  game  in  archery.  We 
are  all  sportsmen  shooting  at  a  mark.     Our  arrow 

259 


26o  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

may  not  reach  the  target,  but  our  target  should  be  a 
worthy  one,  and  we  should  aim  high  enough  to  reach 
it.     "Not  failure  but  low  aim  is  crime." 

Whether  on  the  playground  or  in  life,  whether  in 
the  short  hours  of  a  vacation  or  the  long  years  of  a 
life  time,  the  aim  is  for  success.  We  struggle  to  win. 
We  strain  every  nerve,  and  use  all  our  wits  and 
strength  in  order  to  succeed.  This  is  as  it  should  be. 
Life  is  a  struggle.  It  is  given  us  as  an  opportunity, 
and  the  boy  or  girl  is  only  half  alive  that  is  not  stirred 
with  an  ambition  to  achieve,  to  "hit  the  mark,"  to 
accomplish  something  in  life  as  on  the  playground. 

But,  we  must  learn  early  that  there  are  not  prizes 
for  all  the  runners.  All  cannot  win  the  game.  Often 
in  life  as  in  checkers,  the  success  of  one  means  the 
defeat  of  another.  Of  a  hundred  runners  there  is  but 
one  to  come  out  ahead.  Many  may  aim  at  the  mark,  but 
few  arrows  will  strike  the  bull's-eye  in  the  target. 
The  slightest  defect  in  the  arrow  will  defeat  the  clear- 
est eye  and  the  steadiest  hand.  The  arrow-head  may 
be  a  little  unbalanced,  the  shaft  a  little  bent,  the 
feather  tip  a  little  imperfect,  or,  even  if  the  arrow  be 
perfect  and  the  bow  well  strung,  an  unexpected  whiff 
of  wind  or  a  sudden  glint  of  sunlight  just  at  the  critical 
moment,  may  send  the  arrow  a  fraction  off  the  line 
that  means  success.  Or,  even  if  arrow  and  bow  and 
sun  and  breeze  be  right,  there  may  be  a  twinge  of  the 
nerve,  a  defect  of  the  muscle,  a  weakness  of  eye  for 
which  the  archer  was  not  responsible,  and  he  misses 
the  mark,  the  crown  is  not  his.    The  twitching  nerve 


THE  GAME  OF  LIFE  261 

may  have  been  a  bequest  from  his  grandfather,  the 
Winking  eye  may  have  come  from  his  grandmother; 
the  weakened  muscle  may  have  been  caused  by 
malaria  or  typhoid,  the  bacteria  of  scarlet  fever  or 
diphtheria,  which  the  archer  could  not  have  avoided 
and  for  which  he  must  not  be  held  responsible,  but 
defeat  is  his,  notwithstanding. 

The  first  lesson,  then,  of  our  Lowell  motto,  is  that 
failure  is  not  necessarily  a  crime.  Failure  may  be  no 
disgrace,  indeed  failure  in  one  sense  or  another  is  the 
lot  of  all.  Failure  may  be  honorable.  Failure  is 
oftentimes  complimentary.  Failure  is  always  rela- 
tive. Oftentimes  what  man  calls  failure  God  calls 
success.  The  defeat  of  today  may  bargain  for  the 
success  of  tomorrow.  Of  this  game  of  life,  Brown- 
ing, using  the  archery  figure  also,  has  told  us, 

Better  fail  in  the  high  aim  than  vulgarly  succeed  in  the  low 
aim. 

Indeed  we  have  learned  in  our  studies  how  beauti- 
ful failure  may  be,  how  grand  often  have  been  the 
successes  of  the  defeated  men  and  women  of  the 
world.  Zoroaster  and  Buddha,  Confucius,  Socrates, 
and  Jesus  were  all  "failures,"  judged  by  the  stand- 
ards of  the  world.  Zoroaster  probably  became  an 
outcast,  the  truth  he  tried  to  teach  was  rejected,  and 
the  little  band  of  Parsis  were  compelled  to  move  away 
from  their  native  land  into  the  northwestern  corner  of 
Asia.  And  when  the  near  defeat  seemed  about  to 
grow  into  success,  and  the  new  religion  was 
advancing  westward  at  the  head  of  a  great  army,  it 


262  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

met  defeat  at  the  hands  of  the  Greeks  and  latterly  at 
the  hands  of  the  Mohammedans  in  spite  of  its  great 
truth.  And  today  the  followers  of  Zoroaster  com- 
prise but  a  little  handful,  most  of  them  constituting 
a  little  colony  of  two  hundred  thousand  souls  in  far- 
off  Bombay. 

The  beautiful  prince  Siddartha,  though  he  left  the 
palace  and  gave  up  a  throne  in  order  that  he  might 
be  a  helper,  becoming  a  mendicant  that  he  might 
become  a  teacher,  was  so  much  a  failure  that  all  his 
followers  were  driven  out  of  their  own  land  within 
two  or  three  hundred  years  after  his  death,  and  the 
prophet-prince  of  India,  the  gentle  teacher  who 
taught  his  people  to  be  pitiful,  has  but  few  followers 
in  his  native  India  today,  for  it  is  in  China  and  Japan 
and  Ceylon  and  Siam  that  most  of  the  four  hundred 
and  seventy  million  souls  live  that  call  Buddha 
blessed.  Socrates  was  forced  to  drink  the  poison. 
Jesus  was  crucified.  Giordano  Bruno  and  Servetus 
were  burned.  These  are  only  a  few  of  the  illustra- 
tions that  might  be  given  to  show  how  glorious  some 
kinds  of  failure  are,  how  splendid  it  may  be  to  be 
beaten  in  the  game  of  life. 

But  I  do  not  want  you  to  think  that  no  failures  are 
honorable  except  the  famous  failures.  The  world  has 
been  blessed  with  little  neighborhood  Zoroasters,  local 
Buddhas,  village  Pauls,  men  who  have  preferred  to 
aim  high  and  fail  rather  than  aim  low  and  succeed; 
who  have  tried  to  do  the  right,  and  in  trying  have 
seemed  to  do  little  or  nothing;  who  have  preferred 


THE  GAME  OF  LIFE  263 

being  noble  to  being  popular,  preferred  being  gener- 
ously poor  to  being  selfishly  rich,  preferred  the  right 
to  success. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  might  remind  you  of  suc- 
cesses that  have  been  sad,  of  triumphs  that  have  been 
pitiable.  Marcus  Aurelius  was  a  noble  pagan  em- 
peror. On  the  Capitoline  Hill  in  Rome,  one  of  the 
most  ancient  bronze  statues  in  the  world  represents 
him  on  a  splendid  horse,  with  right  arm  mercifully 
extended  as  if  to  protect  his  prisoners  of  war  from 
the  insults  of  his  own  legions.  While  he  was  ruling 
so  benignly  he  wrote  down  some  of  his  high  thoughts. 
His  book  has  since  been  called  The  Meditations  of 
Marcus  Aurelius.  In  this  book  there  is  evidence  that 
he  thought  a  great  deal  about  the  different  kinds  of 
successes  possible  to  man,  the  successes  that  are  disap- 
pointing as  well  as  the  successes  that  are  glorious. 
In  this  book  we  read : 

A  spider  is  proud  when  it  has  caught  a  poor  fly,  and  some- 
one else  when  he  has  caught  a  poor  hare,  and  another  when 
he  has  taken  a  little  fish  in  a  net,  and  another  when  he  has 
taken  wild  boars,  and  another  when  he  has  taken  bears,  and 
another  when  he  has  taken  the  Sarmatians.  Are  not  these  rob- 
bers, if  thou  examinest  their  principles? 

Oh,  how  shameful  are  the  spider  successes  among 
men.  Even  boys,  in  these  days,  if  they  are  thought- 
ful, pause  before  they  wantonly  draw  the  shining  fish 
out  of  his  watery  home  to  gasp  for  life  and  perish 
painfully  in  the  sunlight.  But  what  about  the  able- 
bodied  men  who  in  the  game  of  life  ruthlessly  catch 


264  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

the  little  fishes  in  their  net,  sell  out  their  own  con- 
sciences, and  trample  upon  the  right  in  order  to  suc- 
ceed. 

All  success  is  not  dishonorable,  but  many  successes 
are  pitiable  failures.  After  election  day,  when  the 
votes  are  counted,  those  who  have  been  elected 
through  the  purchasing  power  of  money  or  favor,  or 
who  have  sought  and  obtained  office  for  the  purpose 
of  trafficking  in  the  people's  rights  and  advancing 
their  own  interests,  have  been  miserably  defeated,  for 
they  have  bargained  for  dishonor ;  they  succeeded  into 
ignominy,  they  triumphed  into  shame  and  disgrace, 
while  those  who  were  defeated  because  they  were 
independent  of  money  and  favor,  because  they  sought 
only  to  serve  their  city,  to  elevate  and  ennoble  their 
state,  they  in  their  defeat  will  have  nobly  succeeded. 

Andrew  Marvell,  scholar,  poet,  and  patriot,  was 
in  the  English  Parliament  when  the  wicked  Charles 
II  was  on  the  throne.  The  reckless  king  needed  a 
great  deal  of  money,  and  he  tried  to  secure  it  by  brib- 
ing the  members  of  Parliament.  The  lord  treasurer 
at  the  king's  instigation  called  upon  Marvell,  who  was 
then  living  in  a  garret,  and,  after  a  friendly  visit, 
placed  a  check  for  a  thousand  pounds  in  his  hands. 
"Come  back,  my  lord,"  exclaimed  the  haughty  com- 
moner. He  then  called  his  servant  boy  and  said  to 
him, 

"Jack,  what  had  I  for  dinner  yesterday?" 

"A  shoulder  of  mutton,  sir,  that  you  ordered  m.e 
to  bring  from  a  woman  in  the  market." 


THE  GAME  OF  LIFE  265 

"Jack,  what  have  I  for  dinner  today?" 

"You  told  me,  sir,  to  lay  by  the  blade-bone  to  boil 
for  soup  today." 

"My  lord,"  said  Marvell,  turning  to  the  lord 
treasurer,  "you  see  that  my  dinner  is  provided  for. 
Take  back  your  paper." 

A  biographer  tells  us  that  Sir  Robert  Walpole 
once  sent  a  famous  minister  to  hire  the  poor  poet 
Goldsmith  to  write  a  political  screed  that  should  help 
defeat  the  lovers  of  freedom  by  heaping  ridicule  upon 
them.  The  poor  poet — and  ah,  how  poor  Goldsmith 
was —  scorned  the  offer,  saying  he  "preferred  to  write 
the  tale  of  'Goody  Two  Shoes'  for  the  amusement  of 
children  than  become  the  hack  pamphleteer  of  politi- 
cal prostitutes." 

No,  failure  is  not  necessarily  crime,  and  success  is 
not  necessarily  a  virtue.  Columbus  went  in  search  of 
India.  He  found  only  a  few  little  islands,  but  there 
was  the  American  continent  farther  on,  of  which  he 
had  not  even  dreamed.  The  prince  Siddartha  wanted 
to  bring  happiness  to  his  people,  to  relieve  them  from 
the  woes  of  life.  In  trying  to  do  this  he  made  the 
world  more  kind  and  taught  gentleness  and  pity  to 
humanity.  Jesus  sent  his  disciples  out  to  seek  the 
"lost  sheep  of  Israel."  In  so  doing  he  sent  a  message 
that  has  encircled  the  earth,  and  his  beatitudes  and 
the  parable  of  the  good  Samaritan  are  now  taught  in 
every  language. 

If,  then,  the  low  aim  is  crime,  what  should  the  aim 
be? 


266  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Shall  we  say  happiness?  Certainly  the  world 
should  be  happy.  The  earth  is  tremulous  every 
springtime  with  Easter  beauty  and  joy.  The  boughs 
dance  with  happiness.  The  birds  chant  their  happy 
songs.  In  the  country  the  lambs  gambol  and  the 
cows  stand  knee  deep  in  fragrant  clover.  God  must 
have  meant  this  for  a  happy  world,  but  happiness  is  a 
poor  thing  to  go  in  search  of,  for  in  seeking  our  own 
happiness  we  often  make  others  miserable.  Kings 
seek  for  happiness  when  they  oppress  their  subjects. 
Warriors  seek  for  happiness  when  they  destroy  their 
foes  and  fill  the  land  with  widows  and  orphan;-.  We 
must  aim  higher  than  happiness. 

Shall  it  be  usefulness,  shall  we  try  to  be  of  service 
to  our  kind?  Yes,  but  who  can  tell  what  is  useful- 
ness? Sometimes  in  trying  to  serve  we  hurt.  Some- 
times mothers  are  unkind  in  their  great  desire  to  help 
their  children.  Fathers  are  cruel  to  their  sons  and 
daughters  by  shielding  them  from  the  struggle  and 
the  toil,  the  responsibility  and  the  discipline  through 
which  they  themselves  have  passed.  We  may  not  be 
able  to  tell  what  is  useful.    Let  us  aim  higher. 

Shall  it  be  truth  ?  Certainly  we  must  ever  remem- 
ber that  the  truth  alone  can  make  us  free.  How 
splendid  it  is  to  give  our  lives  in  a  quest  for  truth,  to 
brave  the  wilds  of  Africa  in  search  of  the  head  waters 
of  the  Nile,  as  Livingstone  did;  to  lose  one's  self  in 
the  desolate  fields  of  snow  in  polar  realms  in  search 
of  a  North  Pole,  as  Nansen  did;  to  steal  away  from 
friends,  from  country,  from  native  land,  and  spend 


THE  GAME  OF  LIFE  267 

years  in  far-away  India,  as  Anquetil  du  Perron,  the 
young  French  student  did,  in  search  of  a  lost  Bible, 
in  the  study  of  a  dead  language,  and  to  bring  back, 
as  he  did,  the  Zend-Avesta,  the  Bible  of  the  Parsis; 
to  prefer  study  to  wealth  like  Faraday,  and  thus  be 
able  to  create  a  new  science  and  to  discover  so  many 
of  the  marvels  of  chemistry.  Think  of  Galileo's  joy 
as  he  looked  through  his  newly  made  telescope. 
Think  of  the  delights  of  Edison  in  the  electric  light 
and  the  phonograph.  Yes,  it  is  great  to  aim  at  truth. 
But  Pilate  asked  Jesus  at  his  trial,  "What  is  truth?" 
and  Jesus  did  not  answer.  We  may  not  know  it 
when  we  discover  it;  we  may  not  even  know  in  what 
direction  to  go  in  search  of  it.  Let  us  try  again  for 
a  higher  aim. 

Shall  it  be  honesty?  We  can  at  least  be  true  to 
ourselves.  We  can  at  least  think  what  we  say  and  say 
what  we  think  in  this  world.  We  can  at  least  aim  at 
honesty,  and  in  that  we  may  do  what  will  bring  use- 
fulness and  happiness  to  others  if  not  to  ourselves. 
They  used  to  say,  "There  is  no  God  west  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi," meaning  by  that  that  on  the  border  of  civili- 
zation and  beyond  it  there  was  no  honesty.  But  now 
we  know  that  there  is  a  God  beyond  the  Mississippi 
and  beyond  the  outermost  reach  of  civilization,  a  God 
that  reveals  himself  where  dishonest  folk  are  proving 
any  aim  below  honesty  to  be  a  crime  which  the  world 
will  at  last  discover  and  despise.  No  matter  whether 
your  business  in  life  is  selling  sugar  or  preaching  the 
gospel,  whether  you  are  a  tailor  or  a  philosopher,  a 


268  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

cook  or  an  artist^  you  can  and  must  be  honest  in  the 
office,  at  the  home,  on  the  farm,  in  the  church,  or  you 
are  aiming  low.  Tell  the  truth  as  you  see  it;  be  loyal 
to  your  own  best  nature,  follow  the  little  light  you 
have,  and  it  will  lead  evermore  to  nobler  light. 

There  is  a  great  story  told  of  a  German  peasant 
during  the  war  of  1760.  A  captain  of  cavalry  drag- 
ged the  poor  old  man  from  his  cabin  and  said,  "Take 
us  to  a  field  where  we  can  find  forage  for  our  horses." 
"Very  well,"  said  the  old  man,  and  he  led  them  through 
a  little  valley  until  they  came  to  a  fine  field  of  barley, 
and  the  captain  said,  "This  will  do."  But  the  old  man 
said,  "Not  this,  please  sir.  Come  a  little  farther  on, 
and  I  will  show  you  another  field."  They  followed, 
and  the  troops  dismounted  and  began  to  mow  the 
growing  grain  and  bind  it  in  sheaves  for  their  horses. 
"But,"  said  the  captain,  "why  did  you  lead  us  here? 
The  other  field  was  just  as  good."  "Yes,"  said  the 
peasant,  "but  that  is  not  mine."  Let  there  be  the 
same  honesty  in  regard  to  the  barley  fields  of  thought, 
the  corn  fields  of  mind.  Another's  thought  is  not 
yours  to  give.     Deal  in  your  own.     Be  honest. 

Is  honesty,  then,  the  highest  mark  to  aim  at  ?  No, 
not  the  highest.  Honesty  deals  with  yourself,  but 
there  is  a  higher  word  that  represents  your  relation  to 
your  kind,  and  that  word  is  justice.  Usefulness, 
truth,  honesty,  all  are  servants  of  this  greatest  of 
words  and  noblest  of  things.  All  the  virtues  and  all 
the  graces  wait  upon  justice.  Justice  is  of  God, 
whose     name     is     Equity,     whose     spirit     is     fair-" 


THE  GAME  OF  LIFE  269 

ness.  Justice  is  love  at  work.  Justice  is  ap- 
plied truth.  Justice  is  corporate  honesty.  Hon- 
esty may  make  the  hermit;  justice  makes  the 
citizen.  Honesty  may  make  a  partisan  and  a  patriot; 
justice  makes  a  cosmopolitan,  a  citizen  of  the  world, 
a  humanitarian,  a  loyal  member  of  humanity. 

This  is  the  aim.  How  shall  we  pursue  it  in  such 
a  way  that,  however  we  may  fail,  there  can  be  no 
crime  in  it?  I  am  not  much  of  a  marksman.  But  did 
you  ever  think  why  it  is  that  he  who  would  hit  the 
mark  shuts  one  eye?  Is  it  not  to  shut  out  all  but 
the  rays  that  come  straight  from  the  mark  and 
return  straight  to  the  mark?  He  who  would  take 
true  aim  must  beware  of  double  vision.  Jesus  talks 
about  the  "single  eye"  and  Paul  about  "singleness  of 
heart."  They  must  have  meant  the  straight  vision, 
the  one  purpose,  a  loyalty  to  the  all-sufficient  aim. 
There  is  an  old  saying,  "He  who  follows  two  hares 
is  sure  to  catch  neither."  A  wag  once  advertised  that 
for  twenty-five  cents  he  would  tell  how  to  prevent  any 
shot-gun  from  scattering,  and  when  he  received  his 
quarter  he  was  wont  to  reply,  "Dear  Sir:  To  keep 
your  gun  from  scattering,  put  in  a  single  shot  at  a 
time."  Englishmen  say,  "The  Yankee  sailor  can 
splice  a  rope  in  a  dozen  ways;  an  English  sailor  has 
only  one  way  of  splicing  a  rope,  but  that  is  the  best 
way." 

Boys,  if  you  would  be  just,  you  must  be  clean, 
pure,  noble.  Whoever  vitiates  the  pure  air  with 
tobacco  fumes,  whoever  mars  his  face  with  drink  or 


270  _  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

fouls  his  speech  with  coarseness  is  so  far  unjust  to  his 
kind,  unjust  to  the  world,  unjust  to  God.  And  the 
girl  that  mars  simplicity  with  frivolity,  economy  with 
spendthrift  habits,  is  cruel  and  unjust  to  herself  and 
others,  blighting  and  marring  the  lives  she  ought  to 
beautify. 

Does  this  seem  a  hard  message  to  the  young? 
Ought  I  not  in  these  spring  days  to  speak  a  message 
of  love  and  of  beauty  rather  than  of  stern  justice? 
But,  my  children,  justice  is  stern  only  to  the  wrong- 
doer. To  the  pure  and  good,  justice  is  love,  is  enthu- 
siasm, is  helpfulness,  is  joy.  Men  talk  of  "cold  jus- 
ice,"  and  "hard  justice."  There  is  no  such  thing, 
for  either  of  these  is  injustice.  In  The  Coming  Peo- 
ple, by  Charles  F.  Dole,  I  find  the  following  motto: 
"Show  us  whatever  is  good  for  mankind,  and  we  will 
try  to  bring  it  about.  Tell  us  whatever  means  will 
bring  good,  and  we  are  pledged  to  use  them."  This 
is  an  aim  high  enough  to  enlist  all  the  energies  of 
love,  and  this  is  simple  justice. 

Thus  runs  an  old  story :  There  were  three  roses 
in  a  florist's  window,  each  "weighed  down  with  love- 
liness as  with  a  crown."  One  of  these  roses  was 
bought  by  a  lover  for  his  sweetheart's  breast,  another 
by  a  widow  to  place  in  the  icy  hand  of  her  dead  child, 
and  the  third  went  to  decorate  the  hair  of  a  wanton 
woman.  Edwin  Arnold,  in  his  poem  "The  Three 
Roses,"  discusses  the  question  which  of  these  roses 
fulfilled  the  highest  mission.  And  in  the  thought  of 
the  past,  not  the  rose  that  strengthened  the  lovers' 


THE  GAME  OF  LIFE  271 

ties  was  most  blessed,  nor  yet  the  rose  that  threw  a 
light  upon  the  coffin  lid,  but  rather  the  one  that  gave 
back  to  the  wayward  woman  the  memory  of  the  long 
ago  when  in  innocence  she  plucked  the  clean  spring 
roses,  the  flower  that  brought  the  sense  of  shame  and 
the  prayer  of  repentance,  the  flower  that  led  the 
wayward  soul  to  exclaim, 

O   Christ !     I   am  thy  wilted   rose, 
Renew  me  !     Thou  renewest  those  ! 

And  the  angels  gathered  at  that  cry  "to  help  this 
soul  that  strove  aright."  The  last  rose  was  the  rose 
of  greatest  love  because  it  was  the  rose  of  justice. 
For  only  the  loving  are  just,  and  only  those  who  pur- 
sue justice  pursue  an  aim  that  ever  lifts  the  pursuers 
above  crime,  however  disappointed,  however  de- 
feated, however,  they  may  fail. 

So  after  all,  my  motto  is  a  motto  of  cheer,  and 
my  message  is  a  message  of  joy.  These  days  of  the 
returning  sun  call  for  a  new  interpretation  of  a  sun- 
beam. It  is  the  life  giver.  Let  Lucy  Larcom  give 
the  closing  word,  answering  the  question,  "What 
would  you  do  if  you  were  a  sunbeam?" 

If   I   were   a   sunbeam, 

I  know  what  I'd  do : 
I  would  seek  white  lilies 

Rainy  woodlands   through; 
I  would  steal  among  them, 

Softest  light  I'd  shed. 
Until  every  lily 

Raised  its  drooping  head. 


272  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

If  I  were  a  sunbeam, 

I  know  where  I'd  go : 
Into  the  lowliest  hovels, 

Dark  with  want  and  woe; 
Till    sad    hearts    looked    upward, 

I  would  shine  and  shine; 
,Then   they'd  think  of   heaven, 
Their  sweet  home  and  mine. 

Art  thou  not  a  sunbeam, 

Child,  whose  life  is  glad, 
With  an  inner  radiance 

Sunshine   never   had? 
Oh,  as  God  has  blessed  thee. 

Scatter    rays    divine! 
For  there  is  no  sunbeam 

But  must  die,  or  shine. 


THE  SOURCES  OF  POWER 


Hast  thou  not  knoivn?  hast  thou  not  heard?  The  everlast- 
ing God,  Jehovah,  the  Creator  of  the  ends  of  the  earth,  fainteth 
not,  neither  is  weary;  there  is  no  searching  of  his  understanding. 

He  giveth  power  to  the  faint;  and  to  him  that  hath  no 
might  he  increaseth  strength. 

Even  the  youths  shall  faint  and  he  weary,  and  the  young 
men  shall  utterly  fall. 

But  they  that  wait  for  Jehovah  shall  renew  their  strength; 
they  shall  mount  up  with  wings  as  eagles;  they  shall  run,  and 
not  he  weary;  they  shall  walk,  and  not  faint. 

— Isaiah  40:  28-31 


XV 

THE  SOURCES  OF  POWER 

Not  knowledge  but  purpose  is  power. — Source  unknown 

What  one  wants  to  know  is  of  more  value  than 
what  one  does  know,  and  what  one  wants  to  do  is 
worth  more  than  what  one  has  done.  The  places 
you  have  not  visited  interest  you  more  than  the  places 
you  have  seen.  You  who  live  in  Chicago  want  to  see 
Boston.  The  Boston  children  yearn  for  a  sight  of 
Chicago.  Europeans  spend  long  years  in  work  and 
economy  that  they  may  visit  America.  Americans  do 
the  same  thing  that  they  may  go  to  Europe.  It  is 
what  we  want,  not  what  we  have,  that  measures  us. 

What    I   aspired   to   be,   and   was    not, 

Comforts  me, 

said  Browning ;  and  in  the  same  poem  he  said : 

All  I  could  never  be. 
All  men  ignored  in  me, 
That  I  was  worth  to  God. 

You  may  have  mastered  the  rules  of  arithmetic; 
you  may  have  learned  to  read  in  several  languages 
and  to  recite  many  poems;  you  may  have  seen  many 
wonderful  sights,  heard  many  eminent  men  and 
women,  and  be  very  "smart,"  as  school  children  say, 
and  yet  be  peevish  when  children,  petulant  when  men 
and  women;  yes,  in  spite  of  all  this  knowledge  you 
may  be  uninteresting,  ungracious,  and  weak.  There  are 

275 


276  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

many  graduates  of  high  schools  without  friends  and 
without  influence.  Every  week  I  meet  young  men  and 
women  who  have  gone  through  college,  yet  have  not 
power  enough  to  earn  a  living,  and  cannot  find  a  place 
in  the  world ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  Abraham  Lin- 
coln without  school,  without  library,  without  money, 
and  at  one  time  without  friends,  climbed  to  be  the 
noblest  American.  And  a  poor  boy  whose  father 
was  a  stone  mason  and  whose  mother  was  a  profes- 
sional nurse,  grew  to  be  the  great  and  noble  Socrates. 

But  it  will  not  do  to  make  too  easy  a  lesson  from 
so  great  a  text.  You  must  not  accept  it  too  readily. 
It  is  true  that  knowledge  without  purpose  is  of  but 
little  avail ;  that  no  matter  how  many  rules  we  master, 
how  many  books  we  read,  how  many  accomplish- 
ments we  acquire,  or  how  many  places  we  may  visit, 
we  are  weak  without  a  purpose,  and  our  acquirement 
is  of  little  use  to  us  unless  we  have  a  commanding 
motive. 

But  it  is  also  equally  true  that  a  purpose  without 
knowledge  oftentimes  brings  weakness  and  defeat. 
When  Sir  George  Stevenson  appeared  before  the 
committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  to  urge  the 
passage  of  an  act  permitting  the  construction  of  a 
railroad  from  Liverpool  to  Manchester,  the  commit- 
tee cross-questioned  him  for  three  days.  One  of  the 
wise  men  said  to  him,  "If  a  cow  was  to  get  on  the 
track  of  the  engine  and  it  was  traveling  at  the  rate  of 
ten  miles  an  hour,  would  it  not  be  an  awkward  situa- 
tion?" 


THE  SOURCES  OF  POWER  277 

"Yea — very  awkward  indeed  for  the  coo,"  replied 
the  young  engineer.  And,  like  Stevenson's  "coo," 
thousands  of  people  are  constantly  putting  themselves 
into  awkward  situations  simply  for  want  of  knowl- 
edge. 

No  high  purpose  can  save  a  fool  who  persists  in 
his  folly  from  the  consequences  of  his  foolishness. 
No  high  purpose  will  enable  one  to  play  the  piano 
successfully  without  practice,  to  survey  a  hill  without 
a  knowledge  of  mathematics,  or  to  make  a  successful 
garden  without  a  knowledge  of  seeds  and  soils. 

Two  great  English  engineers  to  whom  Steven- 
son's railroad  project  was  referred  gave  it  as  their 
opinion  that  the  only  way  steam  could  be  made  to 
draw  railway  cars  was  by  establishing  stationary 
engines  perhaps  one  and  a  half  miles  apart,  to  pull 
the  cars  from  one  station  to  another  with  ropes  and 
pulleys.  Their  purpose  was  good,  but  their  knowl- 
edge was  defective. 

If  it  is  true  that  there  must  be  a  purpose  before 
knowledge  becomes  a  power,  it  is  also  true  that  pur- 
pose must  find  knowledge  before  it  can  become 
powerful. 

Perhaps  the  best  way  for  us  to  find  our  sermon 
is  to  try  to  answer  these  three  questions :  ( i )  What 
is  knowledge?  (2)  What  is  purpose?  (3)  What  is 
power? 

What  is  knowledge?  It  certainly  is  not  an 
acquaintance  with  mere  facts.  It  is  not  familiarity 
with  names.    Knowledge  does  not  come  from  the  die- 


278  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

tionary  or  the  encyclopaedia.  You  may  know  the 
multipHcation  table,  the  Ten  Commandments,  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and  the  Golden  Rule, 
without  knowing  mathematics,  morals,  patriotism,  or 
religion.  To  know  the  names  or  even  the  color  and 
forms,  of  all  birds  in  your  neighborhood  will  not 
make  an  ornithologist  of  you;  to  know  all  the  stones 
in  the  cabinet  by  their  scientific  names  will  not  make  a 
geologist  of  you.  To  know  all  the  notes  in  the  gamut, 
or  even  to  be  able  to  read  them  in  their  combination 
on  the  musical  staff,  will  not  make  a  musician  of  you. 

To  know  the  bird  you  must  know  its  relation  to 
other  birds,  its  habit  throughout  the  year,  what  it 
feeds  upon,  where  it  nests,  and  where  it  spends  its 
winter.  You  must  know  the  bird  in  its  relations. 
To  know  geology,  you  must  know  something  of  the 
formation  of  the  strata,  their  place  in  the  history  of 
the  world,  how  long  they  were  forming,  and  their 
connection  with  the  strata  below  and  the  strata  above. 
To  know  morals,  you  must  know  the  Ten  Command- 
ments in  their  relation  to  life,  how  they  apply  to 
conduct  on  the  playground,  in  the  school,  in  the  home, 
in  business.  Knowledge  is  ordered  information. 
Bread  and  milk  is  not  strength.  It  becomes  strength 
only  when  digested.  So  the  facts  of  life  are  only  the 
materials  out  of  which  knowledge  is  made.  Knowl- 
edge is  always  the  combination  of  the  fact  and  the 
thought.  The  more  facts  and  thinking  combine,  the 
more  knowledge. 

What    is   knowledge,    then?     It    is    not   memory. 


THE  SOURCES  OF  POWER  279 

It  is  not  familiarity  with  facts.  It  is  not 
observation.  It  is  not  even  experience.  It  is 
all  these  put  to  soak  in  the  human  mind.  It  is  all  these 
digested  by  the  human  brain.  Knowledge  is  memory 
changed  to  convictions,  familiarity  transformed  into 
ideas.  The  bird  has  much  keener  sight  than  man. 
The  dog  can  smell  more  acutely.  I  notice  that  my 
good  horse  Roos  will  hear  a  man  beating  a  carpet  on 
a  side  street  when  I  hear  nothing.  But  you  know 
more  than  the  bird;  boys  have  more  knowledge  than 
the  dog;  and  I  hope  I  have  more  sense,  take  it  all 
around,  than  my  horse.  At  least  I  am  not  afraid  of 
a  carpet-beater,  as  she  is. 

Men  put  wheat  into  the  hopper,  and  it  comes  out 
flour.  Women  bake  the  flour,  and  it  becomes  bread. 
Children  eat  the  bread,  and  it  becomes  bodily  strength. 
So  we  put  facts  into  the  thought  hoppers  of  boys  and 
girls.  These  facts  are  ground  in  the  think-mill  of 
life,  and  they  come  out  as  knowledge,  ideas  which  can 
be  baked  into  the  bread  of  wisdom.  This  alone  is  the 
stuflf  out  of  which  comes  strength,  purpose,  and 
power. 

Now  to  our  second  question:  What  is  purpose? 
It  certainly  is  not  mere  impulse,  it  is  surely  more  than 
ambition,  it  is  more  than  desire.  The  baby  wants  the 
candle  to  play  with.  It  reaches  out  for  the  moon.  It 
does  not  know  that  the  moon  is  beyond  its  reach.  It 
has  not  yet  learned  to  judge  of  distances.  The  boy 
who  in  his  anger  vows  to  revenge  himself  upon  his 
playmate,  the  girl  who  thinks  she  is  passionately  fond 


28o  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

of  music  and  wishes  she  could  study  in  Paris,  are  both 
wanting  in  purpose  unless  they  are  willing  to  move  on 
long  lines  and  make  these  vows  and  passions  delib- 
erate. 

Purpose  is  at  least  a  thing  of  silent  if  not  of  slow 
growth.  There  is  an  element  of  justice  in  it.  It  is 
pressure  towards  a  goal  not  reached,  and  the  farther 
away  the  goal,  generally  the  higher  the  purpose.  The 
purpose  of  the  boy  or  girl,  if  it  is  to  become  power- 
ful, must  take  counsel  of  the  power  of  God  by  being 
persistent.  Patience  is  the  secret  of  genius.  Patience 
brings  the  crown  to  the  real  conquerors.  Patience  will 
surely  bring  us,  if  not  what  we  work  for,  then  some- 
thing better.  Persistency  is  always  one  element  of 
the  great  man.  That  is  a  good  old  story  of  Demos- 
thenes, the  greatest  orator  of  antiquity,  who  stam- 
mered so  that  he  was  hissed  from  off  the  stage  when 
he  made  his  first  speech.  But  he  filled  his  mouth 
with  pebbles  and  talked  in  the  face  of  the  storm  as  it 
beat  the  ocean  into  noisy  tumult,  and  so  cured  him- 
self of  stammering  and  acquired  the  power  of  sway- 
ing multitudes. 

Purpose  before  it  becomes  power  must  make  com- 
mon cause  Vv^ith  knowledge;  nay,  more,  it  must  make 
common  cause  with  the  universe.  You  can  not  find 
that  out  about  things  which  is  not  in  things.  No 
purpose  can  get  maple  sugar  out  of  a  basswood  tree. 
No  purpose,  however  diligently  pursued,  can  success- 
fully raise  peaches  in  Alaska  or  reindeer  in  Cuba.  No 
amount    of    purpose    can    make    water    run    up    hill, 


THE  SOURCES  OF  POWER  281 

neither  can  it  make  truth  out  of  falsehood,  right  out 
of  wrong,  or  happiness  out  of  cruelty.  The  purpose 
that  lands  in  power  must  be  a  purpose  -planted,  not  in 
the  changing  law  of  man,  but  in  the  eternal  law  of 
God.  There  is  no  luck.  It  is  all  order.  There  is  no 
chance.     It  is  all  law. 

Next  to  patience  must  come  concentration,  another 
element  in  a  masterful  purpose.  There  is  force 
enough  in  the  boiling  tea-kettle  to  run  a  dynamo,  but 
without  the  aid  of  the  steam  engine  it  is  dissipated 
and  lost.  There  must  be  a  cylinder  to  confine  the  steam 
until  it  is  strong  enough  to  move  the  piston  that  turns 
the  wheel  that  pulls  the  train. 

A  Boston  manufacturer  said  to  a  young  inventor 
who  had  been  puzzling  his  brains  over  a  knitting 
machine,  "Why  don't  you  make  a  sewing-machine?" 
"It  cannot  be  done,"  said  the  inventor.  A  clumsy 
workman  in  the  shop  overheard  the  remark.  It  was  a 
new  thought.  It  aroused  a  new  purpose,  and  Elias 
Howe  began  to  brood  over  it.  Years  and  years  he 
wrestled  with  the  idea,  supporting  himself  and  three 
children  on  nine  dollars  a  week.  The  merry  boy 
became  a  brooding  man.  Model  after  model  he  built 
and  broke,  until  at  last,  in  1845,  he  stitched  himself 
a  suit  of  clothes  with  his  own  machine.  His  purpose 
had  become  not  only  a  power  to  him  but  to  all  the 
world.  Millions  of  sewing  machines  now  relieve  the 
hand  of  man,  and  every  one  of  them  rests  on  Elias 
Howe's  invention. 

Prescott  and  Parkman,  two  of  the  most  eminent 


282  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

historians  of  the  United  States,  achieved  their  work 
under  the  greatest  of  difficulties.  Prescott  was  Wind 
in  one  eye,  and  Parkman  so  nearly  blind  in  both  eyes 
that  he  could  use  them  not  more  than  five  minutes  at 
a  time,  yet  both  made  rich  contributions  to  American 
history,  a  work  which  necessitated  the  mastery  of 
many  books  and  the  deciphering  of  thousands  of  per- 
plexing documents.  Linnaeus,  one  of  the  early  botan- 
ists, was  so  poor  that  he  had  to  beg  his  meals.  David 
Livingstone,  the  great  African  traveler,  began  work 
in  a  cotton  factory  at  ten  years  of  age.  Out  of 
his  earliest  wages  he  bought  a  Latin  grammar  and 
studied  it  in  the  night  schools.  Frederick  Douglass, 
in  a  speech  to  some  colored  children,  once  said : 

I  once  knew  a  little  colored  boy  whose  mother  and  father 
died  when  he  was  but  six  years  old.  He  was  a  slave,  and  had 
no  one  to  care  for  him.  He  slept  on  a  dirt  floor  in  a  hovel, 
and  in  cold  weather  would  crawl  into  a  meal-bag  head  fore- 
most, and  leave  his  feet  in  the  ashes  to  keep  them  warm.  Often 
he  would  roast  an  ear  of  corn  and  eat  it  to  satisfy  his  hunger, 
and  many  times  has  he  crawled  under  the  barn  or  stable  and 
secured  eggs,  which  he  would  roast  in  the  fire  and  eat.  That 
boy  did  not  wear  pantaloons,  as  you  do,  but  a  tow-linen  shirt. 
Schools  were  unknown  to  him,  and  he  learned  to  spell  from  an 
old  Webster's  spelling-book,  and  to  read  and  write  from  posters 
on  cellar  and  barn  doors,  while  boys  and  men  would  help  him. 
He  would  then  preach  and  speak,  and  soon  became  well  known. 
He  became  presidential  elector.  United  States  marshal,  United 
States  recorder,  United  States  diplomat,  and  accumulated  some 
wealth.  He  wore  broadcloth,  and  didn't  have  to  divide  crumbs 
with  the  dogs  under  the  table.  That  boy  was  Frederick  Doug- 
lass.   What  was  possible  for  me  is  possible  for  you.    Don't  think 


THE  SOURCES  OF  POWER  283 

because  you  are  colored  you  can't  accomplish  anything.  Strive 
earnestly  to  add  to  your  knowledge.  So  long  as  you  remain  in 
ignorance,  so  long  will  you  fail  to  command  the  respect  of  your 
fellow-men. 

Now  to  our  third  point:  What  is  power?  Power 
is  that  which  enables  man  to  co-operate  with  God. 
Power  is  a  noble  word  because  it  enables  us  to  achieve 
noble  things,  and,  above  all,  to  be  noble.  The  illus- 
trations of  power  make  the  study  of  science  delight- 
ful, the  reading  of  history  valuable,  poetry  and  fic- 
tion helpful.  This  is  why  biography  is  such  a  valu- 
able source  of  inspiration  to  children,  aye,  to  children 
of  all  ages.  The  mathematician  figures  out  the  path 
of  the  stars  and  says  to  the  man  at  the  telescope, 
"There  is  another  star  hidden  out  there  in  yonder 
section  of  space— look  for  it."  And  he  looks  and 
finds  it.  This  is  the  power  that  comes  to  the  man 
who  works  along  the  lines  of  God,  the  man  who,  in 
good  Bible  phrase,  "enters  into  the  secrets  of  the 
Almighty." 

I  like  the  story  of  Caleb  West,  Master  Diver,  writ- 
ten by  F.  Hopkinson  Smith.  In  this  book  is  described 
the  hard,  brave  life  of  the  builders  and  sailors  who 
construct  lighthouses  along  shore  and  carry  on  the 
dangerous  traffic  with  seaport  towns  of  the  Atlantic 
coast.  "Captain  Joe"  and  his  men  were  raising  on 
the  edge  of  the  sea  ledge  four  great  derricks  with 
which  to  handle  the  tremendous  blocks  of  granite 
that  were  to  be  laid  in  the  walls  of  the  lighthouse,  walls 
that  must  stand  the  tempest   for  centuries  and  hold 


284  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

aloft  the  beacon  that  would  save  life  and  property 
for  generations  to  come.  These  derricks  must  be 
high  enough  to  carry  the  stones  to  the  top  of  the  new 
lighthouse,  fifty-eight  feet  above  the  water  line. 
Three  of  the  mighty  derricks  were  already  up.  On  a 
damp,  foggy,  windy  day  in  August,  the  fourth  was 
going  up.  The  steady  "Heave,  Ho !  Heave,  Ho !" 
of  the  man  tugging  at  the  tackle  line  brought  the 
fourth  a  little  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  position  where 
the  chain  could  be  fastened  in  the  hook,  making  all 
four  derricks  safe.  The  men  were  standing  ankle 
deep  in  water  and  the  tide  was  rising,  when  suddenly 
one  of  the  men  slipped  and  tripped  the  one  next  to 
hmi,  who  also  fell,  and  soon  the  whole  line  was 
floundering  among  the  rocks. 

The  big  fourth  derrick  swung  like  a  tree  that  was 
doomed,  and  all  four  were  in  momentary  danger  of 
falling  and  crushing  the  men. 

"Every  man  o'  ye  as  ye  were,"  shouted  Captain 
Joe.  One  guy  rope  had  held,  but  at  last  it  seemed  to 
give  way. 

"Stand  by  on  that  watch  tackle,  every  man  o'  ye. 
Don't  one  o'  ye  move."  And  not  one  of  them  did 
move,  but  all  stood  by.  But  another  jerk,  another 
break,    and    Captain    Joe    shouted, 

"Down  between  the  rocks.  Heads  under,  every 
one  o'  ye."  This  command  was  as  promptly  obeyed 
as  the  others,  and  no  man  had  been  hurt  though  all 
the  derricks  came  tumbling  down.  The  tide  was 
rising.     No  time  was  to  be  lost. 


THE  SOURCES  OF  POWER  285 

"All  hands  to  the  derricks  again.  We  have  got 
to  get  them  up,  boys,  if  it  takes  all  night."  Again  the 
men  sprang  to  their  tasks.  For  five  consecutive  hours 
they  worked  without  pause.  One  after  another  the 
derricks  rose  again  and  the  guy  ropes  were  once  more 
fastened. 

It  was  now  six  o'clock  at  night.  The  four  der- 
ricks were  again  almost  erect.  The  same  gang  was 
tugging  at  the  watch  tackle.  The  distance  between 
the  hook  and  the  ring  was  now  reduced  to  five  feet, 
and  again  it  was,  "Heave,  Ho!  Heave,  Ho!"  until 
inch  by  inch  the  distance  was  lessened.  But  the  tide 
had  now  risen  until  the  men  were  standing  three  feet 
deep  in  the  water,  and  the  wind  was  blowing  so  that 
the  boat,  the  only  means  of  leaving  the  ledge  upon 
which  they  were  working,  broke  from  its  moorings 
and  was  in  danger  of  being  beaten  to  pieces  upon  the 
rocks.  But  no  man  could  leave  his  rope  to  save  the 
little  boat.  The  waves  were  rolling  higher  and 
higher.  Captain  Joe  held  the  hook.  Then  he  cal- 
culated how  long  it  would  be  before  the  water  would 
be  above  their  heads  and  the  wind  would  crush  the 
boat,  but  he  flinched  not  and  cheerily  cried, 

"Heave,  Ho!  Heave,  Ho!"  and  the  ring  was 
within  two  feet  of  the  hook.  Captain  Joe  was  now 
waist  deep  in  the  sea. 

"Hold  fast,  men!  Hold  fast,  men!"  came  a  cry 
from  the  shore,  as  a  great  curler  rolled  headlong  over 
the  ledge  wetting  the  men  to  their  armpits,  and  the 
wave  rolled  completely  over  the  head  of  Captain  Joe. 


286  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

But  he  rose  to  his  task,  shook  the  water  from  his 
mouth  and  cried, 

"Heave,  Ho!  men!" 

It  was  a  fight  between  the  rising  sea  and  the  men 
at  the  tackle.  One  inch  more,  another  inch,  and  still 
another.  It  was  now  within  six  inches  of  the  hook,  but 
the  water  was  up  to  Captain  Joe's  shoulders.  "Give 
it  to  her,  men!  All  hands  now!  Pull,  men!  Once 
more — altogether!  Heave  Ho!  All  to — "  and  again 
the  sea  buried  him  out  of  sight  before  the  cry  was  out 
of  his  lips.  The  man  on  the  shore  said,  "The  boat  is 
pounding  itself  to  pieces." 

"Let  her  pound,"  replied  Captain  Joe.  "Heave, 
Ho!  men!  Pull  ye — ."  Another  wave  went  over 
him.  He  rose  now  with  no  breath  to  be  wasted  in  cry- 
ing. Every  man  knew  the  crisis  had  arrived.  One 
more  pull. 

"One— 

"One— 

"Two— 

"Hold   hard!     Hold   hard!" 

All  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  captain,  every  man 
held  his  breath. 

"Let  Go!  Let  Go!"  and  the  big  derrick  quiv- 
ered for  an  instant  and  then  steadied  on  its  feet. 

The  Hook  Had  Slipped  into  the  Ring.  The 
guys  were  all  taut,  the  mighty  suspension  bridge  under 
which  the  life-saving  lighthouse  would  rise,  was  firm. 
After  twelve  hours  of  battling  with  the  sea  the  men- 


THE  SOURCES  OF  POWER  287 

scrambled  onto  the  little  ledge,  and  the  cheery  voice 
of  Captain  Joe  cried, 

"All  ye  men  what  is  going  in  the  'Screamer'  look 
to  the  life-boat.  Pick  up  your  tackles.  It  will  be 
awful  soapy  around  here  'fore  morning." 

This  is  the  power  of  a  man  who  was  tempered  by 
the  sea,  who  had  studied  the  tides,  whose  will  and 
mind  and  heart  beat  together.  This  is  a  power  that 
in  fighting  with  nature  becomes  strong  with  the 
strength  of  nature.  Captain  Joe  represents  the  kind 
of  purpose  you  must  have  if  you  are  to  win  in  life's 
battle.  You  must  learn  of  the  elements  how  to  fight 
them,  for  once  you  conquer  them,  they  will  evermore 
be  your  friends. 

I  like  again  the  story  of  the  English  fireman 
who,  seeing  five  men  on  the  top  of  a  burning  building 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  tallest  ladder,  carried  up  a 
short  ladder  to  form  an  extension,  but  it  was  too  short 
to  reach  the  men  whose  lives  were  in  danger.  Stand- 
ing on  the  top  of  the  lower  ladder,  gradually  he  lifted 
the  short  one  from  knee  to  hip,  from  hip  to  shoulder, 
and  braced  himself  against  the  building,  while  the  men 
above  reached  down  and  descended  to  life  and  safety 
on  the  ladder  of  which  the  height  of  the  fireman's 
own  body  was  the  necessary  extension. 

But  not  all  power  is  allied  to  muscle  or  is  found 
in  battling  with  the  outer  forces  of  nature.  I  find 
another  story  which  suits  my  purpose  in  Westcott's 
David  Hariim.  On  Christmas  morning,  the  rough  but 
kind-hearted  country  banker  prepared  to  lift  the  mort- 


288  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

gage  from  the  house  of  a  poor  widow.  He  told  her  the 
story  how,  forty  years  before,  a  young  man  who  sub- 
sequently became  the  husband  of  this  woman,  took 
him,  a  barefooted,  shockheaded,  bashful  country  lad 
to  a  circus  and  gave  him  ten  cents  to  buy  anything  he 
liked.  That  ten  cents  was  the  capital  with  which 
David  Harum  started  out  in  life.  He  had  computed 
the  interest  through  forty  years,  and  was  now  ready 
to  pay  it  back  by  paying  the  thousand-dollar  mort- 
gage upon  the  home  of  the  widow  of  the  man  who 
took  him  to  the  show.  The  kind-hearted  young  man 
had  disappeared.  David  never  saw  him  again,  and 
all  through  life  he  was  haunted  by  the  fear  that  he 
had  not  said  "Thank  you,"  and  that  his  benefactor 
had  never  known  how  great  a  kindness  he  had 
bestowed  upon  the  homeless  boy.  He  said  to  the 
dazed  widow: 

I  never  had  a  kind  word  said  to  me,  nor  a  day's  fun. 
Your  husband,  Billy  P.  Cullom,  was  the  fust  man  that  ever 
treated  me  human  up  to  that  time.  He  gave  me  the  only 
enjoy'ble  time  't  I'd  ever  had,  an'  I  don't  know't  anythin's  ever 
equaled  it  since.  He  spent  money  on  me,  an'  he  give  me  money 
to  spend — that  had  never  had  a  cent  to  call  my  own — an',  Mis' 
Cullom,  he  took  me  by  the  hand,  an'  he  gin  me  the  fust 
notion't  I'd  ever  had  that  mebbe  I  wa'n't  only  the  scum  o'  the 
earth,  as  I'd  ben  teached  to  believe.  I  tell  ye  that  day  was  the 
turnin'  point  of  my  life.  Wa'al,  it  wa'n't  the  lickin'  I  got, 
though  that  had  somethin'  to  do  with  it,  but  I'd  never  have  had 
the  spunk  to  run  away's  I  did  if  it  hadn't  ben  for  the  heartenin' 
Billy  P.  gin  me,  an'  never  knowed  it,  an'  never  knowed  it,"  he 
repeated,   mournfully.     "I   alius   allowed   to   pay   some   o'   that- 


THE  SOURCES  OF  POWER  289 

debt  back  to  him,  but  seein'  's  I  can't  do  that,  Mis'  Cullom,  I'm 
glad  an'  thankful  to  pay  it  to  his  widdo'." 

"Mebbe  he  knows,  Dave,"  said  Mrs.  Cullom,  softly. 

And  David  continued: 

"Wa'al,  I  thought  that  mebbe,  long's  you  got  the  int'rist  of 
that  investment  we  ben  talkin'  about,  you'd  let  me  keep  what's 
left  of  the  princ'pal.     Would  ye  like  to  see  it?" 

Mrs,  Cullom  looked  at  him  with  a  puzzled  expression  with- 
out replying. 

David  took  from  his  pocket  a  large  wallet,  secured  by  a 
strap,  and,  opening  it,  extracted  something  enveloped  in  much 
faded  brown  paper.  Unfolding  this,  he  displayed  upon  his 
broad   fat  palm  an  old  silver   dime  black  with  age. 

There's  the  cap'tal,"  he  said. 

There  is  that  in  the  story  t>f  Captain  Joe  that  may 
stir  the  boys  and  girls  more  than  the  story  of  David 
Harum,  but  perhaps,  after  all,  the  spirit  that  caused 
the  wealthy  young  gentleman  to  take  notice  of  a 
shock-headed,  barefooted,  ragged  boy,  and  "take  him 
by  the  hand"  v^hile  they  studied  together  the  elephant 
and  the  rhinoceros,  was  a  finer,  higher  power  than 
that  which  enabled  Captain  Joe  to  fight  the  waves  and 
the  men  to  stand  by  the  tackle.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
the  power  we  need  is  the  power  which  brings  love, 
helpfulness,  and  holiness,  and  such  power  comes 
through  knowledge  and  ripens  in  the  wisdom  that 
enters  into  the  counsels  of  the  Almighty. 


THE  RHYME  OF  THINGS 


Perfect  paired  as  eagle's  wings, 

Justice  is  the  rhyme  of  things; 

Trade  and  counting  use 

The  self-same  tuneful  muse; 

And  Nemesis, 

Who  with  even  matches  odd. 

Who  athwart  space  redresses 

The  partial  wrong. 

Fills  the  just  period. 

And  finishes  the  song. 

— From  Emerson's  "Merlin" 


XVI 

THE  RHYME  OF  THINGS 

Justice   is   the   rhyme    of   things. — Ralph   Waldo   Emerson 

Given  the  best  blood  of  Puritan  New  England, 
an  ancestry  that  reaches  back  through  seven  genera- 
tions of  ministers  of  religion,  close  contact  v^ith 
nature  and  life,  familiarity  with  the  best  of  books,  all 
the  training  of  Harvard  College,  all  the  discipline 
necessitated  by  economy,  thrift,  and  diligence,  all 
that  love  of  noble  men  and  women  and  an  interest 
in  the  rights  of  the  poor  and  down-trodden  could 
give,  with  that  "something  more"  that  comes,  we 
know  not  how  and  we  know  not  whence,  that  heaven- 
born  plus  we  call  genius,  and  lo,  Ralph  Waldo  Emer- 
son, who  has  given  to  you  your  motto  and  to  me 
my  text. 

The  writings  of  Emerson  are  such  as  might  be 
expected  from  such  a  source,  wise  and  witty,  clear 
and  earnest,  full  of  information,  and  sparkling  with 
originality.  He  wrote  out  of  his  own  heart  to  his 
own  time  and  people,  and  yet  he  did  this  so  well  that 
his  books  are  interesting  anywhere,  and  true  to  all 
times.  He  was  an  American  of  the  Americans,  and 
yet  he  belonged  to  no  country,  no  party,  and  no  sect. 
Wherever  he  is  known  he  is  beloved.  He  is  found  in 
the  libraries  of  the  noble  from  Italy  to  Iceland,  from 
San  Francisco  to  Bombay.     Russian  and  Frenchman, 

293 


294  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Spaniard  and  Turk  love  Emerson.  The  gentle  fol- 
lowers of  Buddha,  the  wise  children  of  Confucius,  the 
little  band  of  Parsis  who  revere  as  holy  the  word  of 
Zoroaster,  the  Mohammedan  who  rides  the  Arabian 
desert  on  his  camel,  all  are  glad  of  Emerson.  They 
love  his  words,  they  understand  his  message,  because 
truth  is  true  everywhere.  Justice  and  love,  like  the 
multiplication  table,  belong  to  no  country,  because 
they  belong  to  all  countries. 

Of  the  twelve  volumes  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emer- 
son's writings,  as  arranged  in  the  final  edition  of  his 
works,  there  is  not  one  to  spare,  and  I  hope  you  will 
eventually  learn  to  love  them  all.  On  Easter  Day,  at 
our  recognition  service,  I  shall  hand  to  each  of 
you  his  Conduct  of  Life.  Here  you  will  find  the 
simple  but  difficult  rules  of  the  higher  life,  such  as 
you  can  never  know  too  early  and  can  never  study  too 
long.  You  may  need  more  schooling  in  this  great 
university  we  call  the  "world"  before  you  can  under- 
stand the  first  essay,  the  one  entitled  "Fate,"  but  I 
think  you  can  already  discover  some  of  the  gold  in 
the  essays  on  "Power,"  on  "Wealth,"  on  "Culture," 
on  "Behavior,"  on  "Worship"  and  on  "Beauty." 
After  these  you  will  be  ready  for  his  other  books  con- 
taining the  great  essays  on  "Compensation,"  the 
"Over-Soul."  and  "Friendship;"  his  books  entitled 
Representative  Men,  Society  and  Solitude,  Letters  and 
Social  Aims,  and  the  others.  Through  all  this  time 
you  will,  I  hope,  be  learning  to  love  the  contents  of 
the  one  volume  of  Emerson's  poems ;  indeed,  you  must 


THE  RHYME  OF  THINGS  295 

already  have  begun  to  study  his  thought-stirring  and 
picture-making  Hnes.  I  trust  that  no  child  can  pass 
through  the  public  schools  of  this  country  without 
knowing  something,  aye,  much,  of  Emerson's  poetry, 
for  it  includes  "The  Mountain  and  the  Squirrel,"  the 
"Titmouse,"  the  "Rhodora,"  "Each  and  All,"  and  the 
"Concord  Hymn,"  which  contains  his  perhaps  most 
famous  lines, 

Here  once  the  embattled  farmers  stood, 
And  fired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world. 

This  volume  includes,  also,  the  poem  entitled  "Mer- 
lin," in  which  you  have  found  your  motto, 
Justice  is  the  rhyme  of  things. 

The  preachers  are  finding  out  that  before  they 
can  interpret  justly  any  Bible  text,  they  must  under- 
stand the  context,  must  know  something  about  the 
time,  place,  and  purpose  that  gave  the  text  being. 
So  with  our  text  from  Emerson ;  we  must  know  some- 
thing about  the  context. 

Merlin  was  the  legendary  father  of  Keltic  poetry. 
Perhaps  there  was  an  original  Merlin,  an  old  British 
bard,  living  in  the  sixth  century  of  the  Christian  era, 
who  harped  so  delightfully,  sang  so  wisely,  prophe- 
sied so  grandly,  that  after-ages  surrounded  him  with 
a  halo  of  myth,  legend,  and  miracle.  For  twelve  hun- 
dred years  or  more  all  the  generations  of  Welsh  boys 
and  girls  have  held  him  half  in  terror  and  half  in  love. 
According  to  the  legends,  he  had  a  demon  for  a 
father  and  a  Welsh  princess  for  a  mother.     From  his 


296  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

earliest  youth  he  had  the  power  of  conjuring  up 
weird  presences  and  of  making  himself  invisible.  He 
used  to  sail  in  a  ship  of  glass,  and,  instead  of  dying, 
he  fell  into  a  magic  sleep  from  which  he  is  some  day  to 
awake  and  help  his  people  back  into  freedom,  power, 
and  glory.  He  was  reputed  to  have  been  the  adviser 
of  four  great  kings,  indeed,  according  to  some  of  the 
legends,  he  was  the  father  of  the  noble  and  great 
King  Arthur  himself,  who  gathered  about  him  the 
Knights  of  the  Round  Table,  the  leaders  of  an  ideal 
democracy  where  freedom  was  the  only  badge  of 
nobility  and  service  the  only  condition  of  honor. 

You  may  have  read  the  story  of  King  Arthur  and 
the  achievements  of  his  knights  in  Tennyson's  beauti- 
ful Idyls  of  the  King;  or  you  may  find  it  in  the 
Mahinogion,  as  compiled  by  Lady  Charlotte  Guest 
and  delightfully  edited  for  boys  by  Sidney  Lanier, 
the  gentle  poet  of  the  South,  whose  name  today  lends 
beauty  to  Johns  Hopkins  University  and  fame  to 
Baltimore.  You  will  find  many  of  the  stories  delight- 
fully told  in  William  Henry  Frost's  book  called  Stories 
from  the  Land  of  the  Round  Table,  and  Professor 
John  Rhys  of  Oxford  has  told  the  story  critically  in 
his  book  entitled  the  Arthurian  Legend.  But  wher- 
ever you  find  them  they  all  cluster  around  the  name  of 
Merlin — and  this  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that 
they  all  come  out  of  poetry-land,  that  they  are  made 
of  the  same  stuff  as  hopes  and  prophecies.  Some  will 
tell  you  they  are  "dreams."  Very  well,  but  such 
dreams  are  made  of  the  most  solid  material  in  the' 


THE  RHYME  OF  THINGS  297 

world.  Marble  palaces  and  stone  monuments  crum- 
ble, but  the  fancies  of  the  human  heart,  the  passions 
of  men  and  women,  the  love  of  children  for  father 
and  mother,  the  patriot's  love  for  his  country,  these 
abide,  because  they  are  made  of  the  solid  stuff  out 
of  which  the  human  soul  is  made  and  in  which  poetry 
deals. 

So  when  Emerson  wanted  to  write  a  poem  about 
poetry,  to  analyze  its  elements,  to  state  its  character- 
istics, and  study  its  power,  he  naturally  took  Merlin 
as  the  representative  poet.  In  the  first  part  of  the 
poem  he  tells  us : 

The  trivial  harp  will  never  please 

Or  fill  my  craving  ear; 

Its  chords  should  ring  as  blows  the  breeze. 

Free,  peremptory,  clear. 

No  jingling  serenader's  art, 

Nor  tinkle  of  piano  strings. 

Can  make  the  wild  blood  start 

In  its  mystic  springs. 

The  kingly  bard 

Must  smite  the  chords  rudely  and  hard, 

As  with  hammer  or  with  mace. 

He  further  intimates  that  poetry  must  not  be  tyran- 
nized over  by  mere  form,  that  there  is  more  than  one 
way  of  writing  it,  that  one  must  not  be  too  exacting 
about  style.    Good  poetry  must 

Mount   to    Paradise 
By    the    stairway    of    surprise. 

After  having  thus  discounted  rhyme,  he  describes 


298  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

the  power  reached  by  the  great  poets  because  their 
words  are  "like  strokes  of  fate,"  strong 

With  the  pulse  of  manly  hearts ; 

With  the  voice  of  orators; 

With  the  din  of  city  arts; 

With  the  cannonade  of  wars; 

With  the  marches   of   the  brave; 

And  prayers  of  might  from  martyrs'  cave. 

Such  poets,  he  says,  belong  to  "Merlin's  mighty 
line."    These  are  able  to 

Bereave  a  tyrant  of  his  will, 
And  make  the  lion  mild. 
Songs  can  the  tempest  still 
Scattered  on  the  stormy  air, 
Mould  the  year  to  fair  increase, 
And  bring  in  poetic  peace. 

Thus  in  the  first  part  he  discovers  strength  as  an 
element  of  poetry,  and  he  hastens  to  assure  us,  in  the 
second  part,  that  beauty  also  must  belong  to  poetry; 
that  poetry  has  use  for  melody,  rhythm,  and  rhyme. 
He  says : 

The  rhyme  of  the  poet 

Modulates  the  king's  affairs ; 

Balance-loving  Nature 

Made  all  things  in  pairs. 

To  every  foot  its  antipode; 

Each  color  with  its  counter  glowed; 

To  every  tone  beat  answering  tones, 

Higher  or  graver; 

Flavor  gladly  blends  with  flavor; 

Leaf  answers  leaf  upon  the  bough; 

And  match  the  paired  cotyledons. 


THE  RHYME  OF  THINGS     ,  299 

But  this  rhythm  must  be  the  rhythm  of  nature,  and 
the  rhyme  must  be  the  rhyme  of  things,  because 
nature  goes  in  pairs,  hfe  is  social,  the  universe  is 
ordered,  the  stars  are  regular  in  their  orbits,  the  sea- 
sons move  with  precision. 

Now  we  are  ready  to  see  the  rhyme  that  belongs 
to  great  poetry.  Not  mere  lilting  syllables,  not  the 
tinkling  melodies  of  a  guitar,  or  the  jinglings  of  a 
tamborine,  but  the  far-reaching  tones  of  the  cornet, 
the  searching  voice  of  the  flute,  the  soarings  of  the 
violin,  accentuated,  it  may  be,  by  the  deep  notes  of  the 
bassoon  and  the  startling  accents  of  the  drum.  All 
rhyme  is  not  poetry,  but  all  poetry  has  in  it  a  rhythm 
of  one  kind  or  another.  This  is  a  distinction  which 
grown-up  folks  oftentimes  fail  to  recognize,  and  so 
I  will  illustrate.  There  is  perfect  rhyme  and  win- 
ning melody  in  this  lilt  of  "Staggerdodgy,"  but  you 
will  hardly  think  it  poetry : 

In   the   bleck   of    Clything   danders 
Some  one  sliffed  some  smole  sorroy, 
Ankdecastory  sminched  with  slanders, 
Clincht  the  girl  and  spole  the  boy. 

At  the  dradgeley  dreeling  droolers 
Diffit  flipped  a  tazvish  sponge; 
But  the  skernlet  imingation 
Smeeled  a  spinge — to  flinkly  munge. 

Soon  a  miffled  grig  befluzed  hur, 
Said  she  zapped  a  morcus  vase 
Until  rawking  wrikes  confused  her, 
When  she  spooched  in  bleep  amaze. 


300  LOVE  AND^LOYALTY 

Drizzly,  crilly,  flippish  ondrugs 
Vautch  a  richly  raspoke  Clythe; 
So  the  merry,  rimpish  vice  bugs 
Die  primpsorply  ere  they  writhe. 

But  here  is  rhyme  and  poetry,  nay,  rhyme  in 
poetry,  because  the  beauty  of  the  sound  is  wedded  to 
the  reahties  of  nature;  music  and  fact  blend  in  these 
stanzas  from  Shelley's  "Cloud"  : 

I  bring  fresh  showers  for  the  thirsting  flowers 

From  the   seas   and   the   streams; 
I   bear   light   shade    for   the   leaves    when   laid 

In  their  noonday  dreams. 
From  my  wings  are  shaken  the  dews  that  waken 

The  sweet  buds  every  one, 
When  rocked  to  rest  on  their  Mother's  breast, 

As    she    dances    about    the    sun. 
I  wield  the  flail  of  the  lashing  hail. 

And  whiten  the  green  plains  under; 
And  then  again  I  dissolve  it  in  rain. 

And  laugh  as  I  pass  in  thunder. 

Now  we  begin  to  understand  what  Emerson  means 
when  he  says,  "Justice  is  the  rhyme  of  things."  It  is 
his  way  of  saying  that  justice  is  the  true  relation  of 
things — not  the  whim  of  human  courts,  but  the  law 
of  the  universe.  Justice  is  not  the  enactment  of  legis- 
latures and  congresses,  but  it  is  the  law  of  God. 

The  universal  symbol  of  justice  is  the  balance,  the 
scales  that  show  the  perfect  poise.  The  stars  move  in 
rhythm;  they  keep  their  orbit  and  move  on  their 
bended  path.  Justice  so  balances  attraction  and  repul- 
sion, the  centripetal  and  centrifugal  forces  of  nature," 


THE  RHYME  OF  THINGS  301 

that  they  hold  the  planets  in  their  paths  and  guide 
the  comets  in  their  wanderings.  Could  you  destroy 
the  balance,  this  earth  of  ours  would  go  diving  blindly 
into  the  sun  or  flying  wildly  into  space,  as  the  jus- 
tice was  on  the  one  side  or  the  other.  Were  it  possible 
to  change  the  proportions  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen  in 
our  air  i  per  cent.,  we  should  smother  or  burn,  and 
confusion  would  reign  where  order  now  holds  in  per- 
fect poise  the  balance  of  vegetable  and  animal  life. 

So  in  the  moral  world,  justice  is  not  only  that 
which  secures  for  us  life  and  property,  but  it  is  that 
which  brings  love,  joy,  and  peace.  Are  there  any 
sick,  any  lonely,  any  discouraged  ones  in  the  world, 
you  may  be  sure  they  are  thus  because  they  or  some- 
body else  has  tampered  with  the  rhyme  of  things. 
Hence  instead  of  harmony  we  have  discord,  instead 
of  co-operation  we  have  antagonism,  instead  of  poetry, 
which  is  truth,  we  have  the  hard  contentions  of  error. 

Justice  is  balanced  in  the  world  of  spirit  as  in  the 
world  of  matter.  Sooner  or  later,  everything  topples 
over  that  overreaches,  that  leans  beyond  its  center  of 
gravity.  The  leaning  tower  of  Pisa  used  to  be  con- 
sidered one  of  the  seven  wonders  of  the  world.  It 
was  supposed  that  it  defied  the  law  of  gravitation,  and 
was  held  in  its  place  by  a  miracle,  but  careful  surveys 
show  that  the  architect  who  designed  the  quaint  tower 
knew  what  he  was  about;  he  built  it  leaning,  but  he 
kept  the  center  of  gravity  within  the  base,  and  the 
law  of  gravitation  holds  the  tower  in  place.  Had  it 
by  accident  or  intent  been  made  to  lean  beyond  the 


302  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

line  established  by  gravitation,  the  leaning  architec- 
ture would  have  fallen.  Think  of  the  great  captains 
of  war  and  industry,  who  in  their  ambition  have  for- 
gotten this  line  of  justice;  great  as  has  been  their 
superstructure,  it  has  fallen  over. 

In  1789  the  humble  French  scientist  Cuvier  waited 
upon  the  great  Bonaparte,  presenting  his  report  on  the 
progress  of  natural  science,  and  begging  his  fostering 
care.  Napoleon  was  able  to  patronize  him  then,  but  now 
Napoleon's  column  has  toppled  over,  while  Cuvier's, 
like  a  noble  pillar,  stands  firm  and  clear  against  the 
sky.  In  Napoleon's  building  plans  there  were  lines 
of  selfish  ambition,  reckless  disregard  of  other  lives, 
cruel  destruction  of  other's  property;  he  violated  the 
"rhyme  of  things,"  and  his  column  has  fallen;  while 
Cuvier  built  in  truth  and  love  according  to  the  plumb- 
line  of  justice. 

A  quaint  old  Jewish  legend  says  that  Balaam,  the 
false  prophet,  was  "blind  in  one  eye."  The  legend  is 
true,  for  all  false  things  are  "blind  in  one  eye."  They 
fail  to  realize  that  "justice  is  the  rhyme  of  things;" 
they  violate  the  balance,  and  they  go  wrong.  They 
spoil  the  rhyme  of  justice,  and  over  they  go. 

Justice  is  particular  about  trifles.  Up  to  1840, 
the  Bank  of  England  found  it  very  difficult  to  protect 
itself  from  the  gold  coins  that,  through  wear  and 
tear  or  through  robbery,  were  of  light  weight.  In 
that  year  a  machine  was  invented  for  the  detection  of 
such  coins.  By  this  machine  thirty-five  thousand  sov- 
ereigns  can  be  tested   in  a  day.      They   pass   down 


THE  RHYME  OF  THINGS  303 

through  a  tube  until  they  come  to  the  critical  spot. 
If  they  are  of  full  weight  they  pass  on,  but  if  they  are 
a  fraction  of  a  grain  short,  the  machine  kicks  them 
aside,  and  before  they  ever  see  the  light  of  day  again, 
they  are  defaced  by  a  heavy  stamp  and  sent  back  to 
the  mint  for  another  coinage. 

So  is  it  in  this  world  of  ours.  There  is  a  machine 
through  which  we  are  all  passing  every  day  uncon- 
sciously, where  we  are  weighed  to  the  weight  of  a 
hair,  and,  if  we  are  found  wanting,  ''insulhciency"  is 
stamped  upon  our  faces.  We  may  not  read  the  marks, 
but  the  power  that  passes  on  our  place  in  the  universe, 
that  determines  our  hold  upon  life  and  usefulness, 
recognizes  and  heeds  the  stamp.  We  doubt  the  effi- 
ciency of  this  weighing-machine  at  our  peril.  From 
it  there  is  no  escape.  The  Talmud  tells  the  story  of 
a  lame  man  and  a  blind  man  set  to  watch  an  orchard 
of  fig  trees.  Both  coveted  some  ripe  fruit;  both 
feared  the  master's  wrath.  "But,"  said  the  blind  man 
to  the  lame  man,  "let  me  take  you  on  my  shoulders, 
and  I  will  bear  you  to  where  the  figs  are  and  neither 
of  us  will  be  responsible,"  When  the  master  missed 
his  figs  he  summoned  the  two  thieves  to  trial,  and  the 
lame  man  pleaded:  'T  could  not  have  done  it,  I  am 
lame;"  and  the  blind  man  said,  "I  could  not  have  done 
it,  I  am  blind."  Whereupon  the  master  caused  the 
lame  man  to  be  placed  upon  the  shoulders  of  the 
blind  man  and  he  passed  his  judgment  upon  the  two 
together.     We  are  all  responsible  for  our  share  of 


304  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

whatever  mischief  we  are  involved  in,  so  exact  is  the 
book-keeping  of  God. 

Justice  is  indifferent  to  size;  it  does  not  care  for 
big  things ;  indeed  nature  oftentimes  has  contempt  for 
mere  bigness.  The  wallowing  reptiles  of  the  prehis- 
toric ages  were  big  but  clumsy.  They  disappeared  to 
make  room  for  man.  You  will  remember  Emerson's 
fable  that  tells  how  "the  mountain  called  the  squirrel 
little  prig,"  to  which  the  squirrel  replied. 

If  I  cannot  carry  forests  on  my  back, 

Neither  can  you  crack  a  nut. 

Sir  Isaac  Newton  wore  a  magnet  in  his  ring 
which  weighed  only  three  grains,  but  it  had  the  power 
of  lifting  a  weight  of  seven  hundred  and  forty-six 
grains,  or  nearly  two  hundred  and  fifty  times  its  own 
weight;  while  the  best  of  the  common  magnets  cannot 
lift  more  than  five  or  six  times  their  weight.  I  have 
read  of  a  glow-worm  which  threw  a  light  from  its 
little  body  so  strong  that  the  photographer  saw  its 
reflection  upon  the  leg  of  his  tripod  three  feet  away. 
Could  you  so  illuminate  your  face  that  it  would  throw 
a  proportionate  light,  one  could  read  by  the  light  of 
your  countenance  a  mile  away.  A  frog  four  inches  in 
length  can,  it  is  said,  easily  jump  two  feet  on  level 
ground.  A  boy  five  feet,  four  inches  high,  jumping 
in  the  same  proportion,  would  be  able  to  make  a  leap 
of  thirty-two  feet  under  similar  conditions.  The 
Kearton  brothers  of  England,  in  a  delightful  book 
called  Wild  Life  at  Home,  say  the  mole  is  probably 
the  strongest  and  most  ferocious  animal  on  the  face 


THE  RHYME  OF  THINGS  3^5 

of  the  whole  earth  in  proportion  to  its  size.  They  say : 
*'It  is  appalhng  to  think  what  terrible  monsters  for 
mischief  these  moles  would  be  if  they  had  been  created 

as  large  as  elephants Give  the  mole  a  chance 

to  bury  his  head  and  forefeet  in  the  ground, 
and  he  can  drag  after  him  a  lump  of  lead  as  big  as 
himself."  A  cruel  experimenter  in  England,  testing 
the  mole's  strength,  tied  a  string  to  its  hind  leg  and 
placed  the  other  in  a  running  noose  around  a  dog's 
neck,  and  the  powerful  little  mole  unwittingly  hung 
the  poor  dog,  to  the  shame  and  disgrace  of  the  cruel- 
hearted  man. 

No,  there  is  no  virtue  in  size.  It  is  not  the  big 
things  that  are  great,  but  the  great  things  are  big. 

Two  great  Jewish  masters,  Shammai  and  Hillel, 
taught  in  Jerusalem  when  Jesus  was  a  little  boy.  A 
Gentile  went  to  Shammai  and  said,  "Teach  me  the 
whole  law  while  I  stand  upon  one  leg,  and  I  will  fol- 
low you."  And  Shammai  drove  him  off  with  a  rod 
for  his  levity.  Then  the  Gentile  went  to  Hillel.  And 
Hillel  promptly  answered :  "That  which  is  hateful 
to  thyself  do  not  do  to  thy  neighbor.  This  is  the 
whole  law,  and  the  rest  is  commentary."  And  forth- 
with the  inquirer  was  converted.  The  Chinese  teacher 
Confucius  succeeded  even  better  than  Hillel,  for  when 
a  disciple  asked  him  if  he  could  state  the  whole  demand 
of  life  in  one  word,  he  replied,  "Yes,  is  not  Reciproc- 
ity that  word?"  Both  of  these  anticipated  the  Golden 
Rule  of  Jesus,  which  is  a  short  but  far-reaching  rule. 

Justice  knows  no  trifles.    Justice  neglects  nothing, 


3o6  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

throws  nothing  away.  Everything  is  important. 
Omit  anything,  and  the  "rhyme  of  things"  is  broken, 
and  justice  is  marred.     Says  the  Tahiiud : 

Not  one  single  thing  has  God  created  in  vain.  He  created 
the  snail  as  a  remedy  for  the  blister;  the  fly  for  the  sting  of  a 
wasp;  the  gnat  for  the  bite  of  a  serpent;  the  serpent  itself  for 
healing  the  itch  (or  the  scab)  ;  and  the  lizard  (or  the  spider) 
for  the  sting  of  a  scorpion. 

A  poor  way  of  saying  what  Emerson  said  well : 

All  are  needed  by  each  one. 
Here  is  another  story  from  the  Talmud :  A  Jewish 
judge,  crossing  the  river  in  a  ferry  boat,  was  pre- 
vented from  falling  in  by  a  man  who  had  a  lawsuit 
before  him,  whereupon  the  judge  refused  further  to 
sit  upon  the  case  for  fear  he  would  be  biased  in 
favor  of  his  benefactor.  Justice  is  not  partial. 
Justice  accepts  no  favors. 

And  justice  acts  now.  The  balances  are  poised 
every  day.  "One  pepper-corn  today  is  better  than  a 
basketfull  of  pumpkins  tomorrow,"  said  another  old 
Jewish  rabbi.  It  is  not  the  good  you  are  going  to  do 
some  day;  it  is  the  good  you  are  doing  now.  Each 
day  is  judgment  day  at  the  bar  of  justice. 

And  again,  justice  is  not  only  between  man  and 
man,  but  between  men  and  men.  We  cannot  play 
alone  in  this  world.  We  cannot  go  to  heaven  alone, 
and  we  cannot  go  to  hell  alone;  there  is  no  joy  or 
misery  that  can  be  separated  from  the  joy  or  misery 
of  others.  This  principle  brings  justice  down  among 
our  poor  relations.     It  teaches  us  our  obligation  to 


THE  RHYME  OF  THINGS  307 

our  humble  friends,  the  rights  of  the  dog  and  the 
horse,  of  the  deer  and  the  partridge.  Read  Ernest 
Thompson  Seton's  Wild  Animals  I  Havf  Known,  or 
his  Trail  of  the  Sand-Hill  Stag,  and  see  how  much 
companionship  is  possible,  nay,  how  much  is  fitting 
between  us  and  the  wild  animals,  even  between  us  and 
the  wild  flowers  of  the  field,  what  joy  there  is  in  the 
"new  hunting"  of  which  he  writes,  and  what  misery 
in  the  "old  hunting."  Among  the  delightful  pictures 
he  shows,  the  one  most  to  my  liking  was  that  of  the 
doe  and  her  two  little  fawns  unwittingly  taking  their 
own  picture  by  the  flashlight  trap  with  a  camera  back 
of  it.  How  full  of  surprise,  of  light,  of  beauty  it  was. 
Another  impressive  picture  was  that  of  a  wild  goat 
that  had  finally  wasted  away  from  the  awkward  shot 
of  the  hunter  in  a  lonely  cabin.  The  shivering  starv- 
ing little  kid  stood  piteously  over  the  dead  body  of 
the  mother  that  would  nevermore  lead  it  to  the  green 
grass  or  the  refreshing  brook.  The  hunter  had 
marred  the  rhyme  of  nature  with  an  injustice. 

My  sermon  has  reached  its  length,  but  it  is  not 
finished.  A  good  sermon  is  never  finished.  The 
closing  paragraph  must  always  be  furnished  by  the 
listener;  the  final  peroration  always  comes  when 
thought  is  converted  into  action.  That  only  is  a 
good  sermon  which  ripens  into  effort  on  the  part  of 
those  who  listen  to  it,  and  that  only  is  a  poor  sermon 
which  moves  no  one  to  action  and  stirs  no  one  to 
nobility. 

Let  me  end  by  going  back  to  Emerson,  who  tells 


3o8  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

us  that  the  house  of  life  is  full  of  subtle  rhymes  sung 
to  us  by  the  fateful  sisters  that  spin  our  lives.  They 
sing  in  perfect  time  and  measure.  Let  our  lives  keep 
time  with  that  song.  Nay,  let  us  go  back  of  Emerson 
to  Merlin,  the  prophetic  bard  who  "followed  the 
gleam,"  the  ideal,  the  reflection  of  the  real  in  which 
all  things  rest,  out  of  which  all  things  spring,  which 
holds  sun,  moon,  and  stars ;  father,  mother,  and  babe ; 
Moses,  Paul,  and  Jesus ;  Socrates  and  Lincoln,  aye, 
boy  and  girl,  horse  and  dog,  roses  and  grasses,  all  in 
its  embrace.  All  of  these  have  their  place  and  their 
right  to  life  and  love  guaranteed  by  the  justice  that  is 
"the  rhyme  of  things." 


ABOUT  THRONES 


It  is  for  service  you  are  here; 

Not  for  a  throne. 

You  have  been  called^  you  know,  to  suffer  and  to 

zvork, 
And  not  to  gossip  and  to  dose. 
As  in  the  burning  furnace  gold  is  tried. 
Here  are  men  tried: 
And  no  one's  feet  are  firm, 
Unless  with  all  his  heart  he  strives  to  live 
Willingly  humble  for  the  love  of  God. 

— Thomas  a  Kempis 


XVII 
ABOUT  THRONES 

It  is  for  service  you  are  here; 
Not  for  a  throne. 

— Thomas  a  Kempis 

Your  predecessors  of  the  Confirmation  Class 
alumni  have  found  their  texts  in  the  words  of  Emer- 
son, Browning,  Zoroaster,  Wordsworth,  Oliver  Wen- 
dell Holmes,  Shakespeare,  Tennyson,  Lowell,  Horace 
Mann,  Robert  Collyer,  and  that  prolific  source  which 
the  books  call  "anonymous,"  in  notes  from  songs  that 
have  survived  the  singers,  words  that  have  outlived 
the  name  and  date  of  the  spirit  that  gave  them  birth. 

I  was  interested  in  your  quest  and  am  happy  in 
your  choice.  I  was  touched  in  a  way  you  cannot 
understand  when  I  found  that  one  of  your  number 
had  been  hunting  for  a  motto  in  his  christening  book, 
for  it  put  meaning  and  a  certain  amount  of  justifica- 
ton  into  these  whitening  locks  of  mine.  It  meant  that 
my  Donald,  whom  I  had  held  in  my  arms  as  a  babe 
and  into  whose  baby  hands  I  had  placed  a  copy  of 
Thomas  a  Kempis'  Imitation  of  Christ  on  his  chris- 
tening day,  was  now  grown  old  enough  to  be  in  my 
Confirmation  Class,  to  take  interest  in  our  talks  about 
God,  duty,  and  destiny,  and  in  our  study  of  religion 
as  revealed  in  humanity's  search  for  truth,  love,  and 
life.    I  am  so  glad  you  have  found  a  text  in  this  book 

3" 


312  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

that  I  am  going  to  take  quite  a  bit  of  my  sermon  time 
to  tell  you  about  the  book  and  its  writer,  for  in  this 
way  I  shall  give  the  best  interpretation  of  your  motto 
and  preach  the  most  valuable  part  of  the  sermon 
that  belongs  to  this  text : 

It  is  for  service  you  are  here; 

Not  for  a  throne. 

The  text  is  taken  from  a  little  book  written  about 
five  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  by  a  dumpling-like 
Dutch  monk,  described  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britan- 
nica  as  "a  little  fresh-colored  man,  with  soft  brown 
eyes,  who  had  a  habit  of  stealing  away  to  his  cell 
whenever  the  conversation  became  too  lively."  It  is 
on  record  that  "he  stood  upright  when  the  psalms 
were  chanted,  and  even  rose  on  his  tiptoes  with  his 
face  turned  upward;  genial,  if  shy,  and  occasionally 
given  to  punning,  as  when  he  said  that  he  preferred 
psalms  to  salmon." 

He  lived  a  quiet  life  in  a  stormy  time.  Europe 
was  torn  with  wars,  scholars  were  quarreling  over 
doctrines,  and  the  church  was  torn  by  contending 
bishops  and  even  by  rival  popes.  France  and  England 
were  engaged  in  hostile  war.  Huss  and  Jerome  of 
Prague  had  been  put  to  death  for  their  heresies. 
There  was  one  pope  at  Rome,  a  rival  pope  at  Avig- 
non in  France,  and  a  third  who  would  like  to  be  pope, 
at  Ravenna.  The  Mohammedans  were  gathering 
around  Constantinople  ready  to  supplant  the  cross  of 
the  Christian  with  the  crescent  of  Islam.  But  all  this 
excitement  does  not  seem  to  have  disturbed  the  quiet 


ABOUT  THRONES  31 3 

of  the  home  of  John  and  Gertrude  Hammerken,  then 
Hving  fifteen  miles  from  the  city  of  Dusseldorf, 
between  the  rivers  Rhine  and  Meuse,  in  the  princi- 
pahty  of  Cologne,  situated  in  what  is  now  the  border 
of  Holland.  The  father  was  an  honest  peasant  cob- 
bler, the  mother  kept  a  "dame  school,"  where  she 
taught  little  children  not  only  their  letters  but  their 
manners.  Her  son  described  her  in  quaint  Latin  as 
being  "an  attentive  custodian  of  domestic  things,  who 
worked  with  alacrity,  was  sober  in  her  diet,  abstemi- 
ous in  her  drink,  careful  of  her  words,  and  modest  in 
behavior." 

There  were  two  sons,  John  and  Thomas.  They 
had  heard  much  of  the  great  preacher,  John  Tauler, 
and  the  parents  had  probably  heard  him  preach.  He 
belonged  to  a  new  order  of  monks  who  called  them- 
selves "The  Friends  of  God."  When  the  great  plague 
of  the  "Black  Death"  visited  his  native  city,  Stras- 
burg,  and  all  who  could  fled  beyond  its  gates, 
leaving  the  city  to  the  dead  and  the  dying, 
Tauler,  the  great  man  of  God,  remained  with  thd 
terror  stricken  people,  nursed  them  while  living,  com- 
forted them  while  dying,  and  helped  to  bury  them 
when  dead. 

So  you  see  these  little  boys  were  well  started,  born 
into  a  simple,  earnest  home.  They  had  an  industrious 
father  and  a  bright  mother,  both  of  whom  believed  it 
possible  to  lead  a  quiet  and  silent  life  with  God  in  a 
hurried  and  noisy  world.  John,  the  elder  brother, 
went  ofif  to  school  and  joined  a  community  known  as 


314  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

"The  Brothers  of  Common  Life,"  a  company  who 
tried  to  combine  the  Hfe  of  the  church  and  the  life  of 
the  world  in  a  practical  community  where  all  worked 
and  did  their  share.  Little  Thomas  was  anxious  to 
follow  his  brother  John.  At  thirteen  years  of  age  he 
was  allowed  to  go  to  the  same  school.  Here  he 
indulged  his  passion  for  books — Latin,  Greek,  mathe- 
matics, and  possibly  a  little  science,  and  a  little  logic. 
He  found  a  delightful  way  of  paying  his  way  at 
school.  It  was  before  the  day  of  printing,  and  young 
Thomas  loved  to  copy  manuscript.  He  learned  to  do 
it  very  beautifully.  It  became  his  business  through 
life.  He  copied  Bibles,  prayer  books,  sermons,  and 
poems,  and  there  is  a  tradition  of  one  complete  and 
very  beautiful  Bible  copied  entirely  by  his  hand,  still 
preserved  in  some  European  library.  He  lived  to  be 
ninety-one  years  of  age,  and  most  of  his  long  life  he 
spent  in  copying.  There  is  said  to  be  a  quaint 
portrait  of  him  still  extant,  and  under  the  picture  is 
written,  "I  have  sought  everywhere  for  peace,  but  I 
found  it  not  save  in  a  little  nook  and  in  a  little  book." 

When  he  presented  himself  at  school  he  was  regis- 
tered according  to  the  custom  of  the  time  as  "Thomas 
of  Kempen,"  and  so  the  father's  name  of  "Littleham- 
mer"  was  neglected  and  almost  forgotten,  while  the 
school  name  of  "Thomas  a  Kempis"  took  its  place. 

The  love  of  quiet  and  of  study  drove  him  to  the 
only  sure  retreat  of  the  scholar  in  those  days.  Again 
he  followed  his  brother  John  to  the  convent  of  Mount 
St.  Agnes.     Here  he  was  admitted  as  a  student  when 


ABOUT  THRONES  315 

nineteen,  and  eight  years  later,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
seven,  he  took  the  vows  of  a  monk.  He  was  ordained 
a  priest  at  thirty-three,  and  became  sub-prior  at  forty- 
five.  At  one  time  his  brethren  so  trusted  him  that  they 
appointed  him  to  some  kind  of  office,  making  him 
something  between  a  steward  and  a  treasurer,  but  the 
books  tell  us  that  he  was  "too  simple  in  worldly 
affairs"  and  "too  absent-minded  for  the  post,"  and 
they  had  to  let  him  go  back  to  his  cell  and  to  the  sub- 
priorship,  where  he  continued  diligently  to  copy  and 
write  until  he  was  ninety-one  years  of  age,  dying  on 
July  25,  1471. 

According  to  one  authority,  the  convent  of  Mount 
St.  Agnes  was  poor,  and  all  the  inmates  were  obliged 
to  work.  It  had  a  large  trade  in  manuscripts,  and 
Thomas  was  the  most  laborious  and  profitable  copyist 
of  them  all. 

Besides  the  books  which  he  copied  he  wrote 
several,  to  which  his  name  is  appended.  These  are 
some  of  his  titles :  The  Monk's  Alphabet,  The  Dis- 
cipline of  the  Cloister,  The  Life  of  the  Good  Monk, 
The  Monk's  Epitaph,  Sermons  to  Novices,  The  Soli- 
tary Life,  On  Silence  and  On  Poverty,  Humility  and 
Patience.  He  wrote  tracts  for  young  people  and  a 
manual  for  children.  He  wrote  little  books  on  such 
topics  as  these:  The  Garden  of  Roses,  The  Valley  of 
Lilies,  The  Consolation  of  the  Poor  and  the  Sick,  The 
Soul's  Soliloquy,  and  The  Hospital  of  the  Poor. 
Indeed,  he  is  credited  with  so  much  work  that  many 
have  thought  he  could  not  have  written  this  one  book 


3i6  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

more.  It  is  one  of  the  unquestioned  great  little  books 
of  the  world,  and,  although  there  are  known  copies  of 
the  little  book  written  in  the  hand  of  this  quiet  son  of  a 
cobbler,  he  himself  never  claimed  it  as  his  own,  and 
until  1872  it  seems  not  to  have  been  settled  that  this 
copyist  of  other  people's  books  was  himsef  the  author 
of  a  book  greater  than  any  he  ever  copied  for  the 
market  except  the  Bible  itself.  It  was  one  of  the 
delightful  exercises  required  of  this  little  company  of 
copyists  that  they  should  make  selections  for  them- 
selves of  the  noble  texts,  bright  things,  and  happy 
thoughts  that  impressed  them  in  the  books  they 
copied,  or  that  were  awakened  in  their  own  minds 
while  copying.  It  is  probable  that  in  some  such  way 
as  this  the  beautiful  book  grew.  It  grew  like  a  pine 
tree,  so  quietly,  so  unconsciously,  that  evidently  the 
author  himself  did  not  know  it  was  a  great  tree.  He 
perhaps  did  not  know  that  he  did  it,  and  modestly 
withheld  any  claims  to  its  authorship.  Perhaps  it 
was  such  an  honest  reflection  of  everybody's  troubles, 
such  a  revelation  of  the  aspirations  of  all  noble  souls, 
perhaps  it  was  drawn  so  directly  from  the  wisdom  of 
the  ages,  that  he  did  not  think  it  belonged  to  him. 
It  is  a  simple  little  book,  so  plain  that  little  chil- 
dren can  understand  much  of  it,  and  tired  women  can 
find  rest  in  the  reading;  and  yet  statesmen  and  philos- 
ophers have  loved  it.  So  universal  is  it  that  it  is  loved 
by  people  of  all  races  and  religions.  It  was  written  in 
Latin,  but  has  been  translated  int6  nearly  all  languages. 
The  author  was  a  Catholic,  but  Protestants  and  non- 


ABOUT  THRONES  3^7 

Christians  love  the  book  as  well  as  Catholics.  A 
Moorish  prince  once  showed  a  Christian  missionary 
a  Turkish  version  of  the  book,  saying  that  he  prized 
it  above  all  other  books  in  his  possession  except  the 
Koran.  George  Eliot,  the  wise  woman  who  under- 
stood Darwin  and  believed  in  Herbert  Spencer's 
teachings,  and  who  loved  Tennyson  and  Browning, 
tells,  in  her  beautiful  story  of  Maggie  Tulliver,  how 
Maggie,  when  distressed  and  unhappy,  was  given  by 
Bob  the  peddler  "a  little,  old,  clumsy  book  that  had 
the  corners  turned  down  in  many  places,  and  some 
hand,  now  forever  quiet,  had  made  at  certain  passages 
strong  pen-and-ink  marks,  long  since  brown  by  time." 
It  was  a  copy  of  Thomas  a  Kempis,  and  Maggie's 
tired  heart  read  the  passages  marked  by  the  hand 
long  since  dead : 

"Know  that  the  love  of  thyself  doth  hurt  thee  more  than 

anything    in    the    world Blessed    are    those    ears    which 

hearken  not  unto  the  voice  that  soundeth  outwardly  but  unto 
the  truth  which  toucheth  inwardly." 

A  strange  thrill  of  awe  passed  through   Maggie  while   she 

read She    knew    nothing    of    doctrines    and    systems,    of 

mysticism  or  quietism,  but  this  voice  out  of  the  far-off  middle 
ages  came  with  an  unquestioned  message  to  Maggie. 

Thus  has  it  come  with  its  message  to  many  impul- 
sive girls  and  passionate  boys,  to  tired  men  and  feeble 
women,  to  the  poor  and  the  rich,  to  the  well  and  the 
sick,  to  the  young  and  the  old.  The  explanation  is 
always  the  same,  and  George  Eliot  has  stated  it  so 
much  better  than  I  can,  that  I  quote  further  from  her 
story,  which  some  day  will  come  to  you  with  its  high, 


31 8  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

sweet  lessons  from  this  old  book  that  has  survived  the 
centuries,  a  book  still  new  and  up  to  date. 

I  suppose  that  is  the  reason  why  the  small  old-fashioned 
book,  for  which  you  need  only  pay  sixpence  at  a  book-stall, 
works  miracles  to  this  day,  turning  bitter  waters  into  sweet- 
ness :  while  expensive  sermons  and  treatises,  newly  issued,  leave 
all  things  as  they  were  before.  It  was  written  down  by  a  hand 
that  waited  for  the  heart's  prompting;  it  is  the  chronicle  of  a 
solitary,  hidden  anguish,  struggle,  trust,  and  triumph — not 
written  on  velvet  cushions  to  teach  endurance  to  those  who  are 
treading  with  bleeding  feet  on  the  stones.  And  so  it  remains 
to  all  time  a  lasting  record  of  human  needs  and  human  consola- 
tions :  the  voice  of  a  brother  who,  ages  ago,  felt  and  suffered 
and  renounced — in  the  cloister,  perhaps,  with  serge  gown  and 
tonsured  head,  with  much  chanting  and  long  fasts,  and  with  a 
fashion  of  speech  different  from  ours — but  under  the  same 
silent  far-off  heavens,  and  with  the  same  passionate  desires,  the 
same  strivings,  the  same  failures,  the  same  weariness. 

So  simple  and  plain  is  this  book  that  only  learned 
men  detect  how  wide  were  the  sources  of  the  little 
monk's  inspiration.  A  recent  student  tells  us  that, 
besides  much  from  the  Bible,  the  author  drew  from 
the  writings  of  Saint  Gregory  the  Great,  of  Saint 
Bernard  and  Saint  Francis  of  Assisi,  of  Saint  Thomas 
and  Saint  Bonaventura,  and  the  Roman  Catholic 
prayer-book.  The  book  shows  that  the  author  was 
acquainted  with  Aristotle,  Ovid,  and  Seneca,  and 
that  he  knew  something  of  Dante  and  the  early  legends 
of  the  Holy  Grail,  which  Tennyson  so  beautifully 
used  half  a  thousand  years  afterward  in  his  Idyls  of 
the  King. 

Let  us  stay  a  little  longer  with  the  author  and  the 


ABOUT  THRONES  319 

book,  and  see  how  he  sought  service  and  not  a  throne, 
and  how,  by  diHgent  serving,  he  unconsciously  found 
a  throne.  Says  one  of  his  brothers  ei  the  order, 
"When  he  was  walking  abroad  with  some  of  the 
brotherhood  or  with  some  of  his  other  friends,  he 
would  suddenly  feel  an  inspiration  come  upon  him 
and  would  say,  'My  beloved,  I  must  now  leave  you,' 
and  meekly  beg  to  be  excused,  saying,  'Indeed  it 
behooves  me  to  go.  There  is  one  expecting  me  in  my 
cell'."  It  was  his  book  that  was  expecting  him,  the 
thoughts  that  wanted  to  be  written  down  drove  him 
to  his  work,  "and  the  brethren,"  says  the  old  writer, 
"took  well  his  excuse  and  were  much  edified  thereby." 
I  have  spoken  of  his  simple  life.  In  his  book  he 
tells  us, 

By  two  things  a  man  is  lifted  up  above  things  earthly, 
namely,  by  simplicity  and  purity.  Simplicity  ought  to  be  in  our 
intention,     purity     in     our     affections.       Simplicity     doth     tend 

towards    God,    purity    doth    apprehend    and    taste    him If 

the  world  were  sincere  and  upright,  then  would  every  creature 
be  unto  thee  a  living  mirror  and  a  book  of  holy  doctrine.  There 
is  no  creature  so  small  and  abject  that  it  representeth  not  the 
goodness  of  God.  If  thou  wert  inwardly  good  and  pure,  then 
wouldst  thou  be  able  to  see  and  understand  all  things  well  with- 
out impediment.     A  pure  heart  penetrateth  heaven   and  hell. 

This  was  his  way  of  preaching  a  sermon  from  the 
beatitude — "Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they 
shall  see  God."  And  it  was  thus  that  he  anticipated 
the  story  of  Sir  Galahad,  of  whom  Tennyson  sings: 

His  strength  was  as  the  strength  of  ten, 
Because  his  heart  was  pure. 


320  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Thomas  Littlehammer  was  not  afraid  of  himself. 
He  loved  to  "loaf  and  invite  his  soul,"  as  Walt  Whit- 
man would  say.  He  was  happy  to  be  alone,  for  being 
alone  meant  to  him  being  with  God,  that  is,  with  the 
source  of  high  thought,  pure  feeling,  and  kindly  pur- 
poses. 

The  philosophers  call  Thomas  a  Kempis  a  mystic. 
This  word  has  many  significations,  but  in  its  best 
sense,  it  means  one  who  strives  to  be  in  harmony  with 
all  good  things,  who  wants  to  feel  God  within,  and  to 
see  God  without,  who  feels  as  another  has  said,  "a 
striving  of  the  soul  after  union  with  divinity,"  who 
rests  in  the  belief  that  one  can  find  the  truth  by 
being  true  and  know  love  by  loving.  Our  author 
says: 

Love  is  a  great  thing,  yea,  a  great  and  thorough  good 

Nothing  is  sweeter  than  love,  nothing  more  courageous,  nothing 
higher,  nothing  vi^ider,  nothing  more  pleasant,  nothing  fuller  nor 
better  in  heaven  and  earth;  because  Love  is  born  of  God,  and 
can  rest  but  in  God  above  all  created  things. 

Although  this  book  has  been  so  loved  and  cherished 
for  five  hundred  years,  its  real  form  and  original  pur- 
pose seem  to  have  been  lost  sight  of  for  the  last  four 
hundred  years.  In  1872  Dr.  Hirsche,  a  Dutch 
scholar,  made  the  discovery  that  this  book  was  a 
book  of  poetry  and  not  of  prose,  that  it  was  written 
metrically,  and  that  in  the  Latin  it  lends  itself  readily 
to  chanting.  Indeed  its  real  title  seems  to  be  Musica 
Ecclesiastica,  church  music.  It  was  meant  to  be  in- 
toned in  church  or  in  private.     It  is  a  book  of  hymns 


ABOUT  THRONES  321 

and  prayers,  as  well  as  a  book  of  meditations.  Dr. 
Hirsche  was  the  first  of  modern  scholars  to  under- 
stand the  significance  of  some  peculiar  punctuation 
marks  in  the  old  manuscripts.  They  were  evidently 
meant  to  indicate  the  inflections  of  the  reader  or  the 
singer,  to  serve  the  purpose  of  musical  notations,  and 
when  similar  notations  were  found  in  the  other 
known  writings  of  the  shy  little  monk,  his  author- 
ship to  this  disowned  book  was  practically  estab- 
lished. 

The  common  English  version  of  this  book,  such 
as  the  christening  copy  in  which  you  looked  for  your 
text,  is  printed,  like  the  New  Testament,  as  prose, 
and  is  divided  into  verses,  but  in  a  later  and  better 
English  translation  it  is  printed  in  lines  and  looks 
like  the  poetry  it  is.  This  revised  version  tries  to  pre- 
serve the  Latin  terseness  and  its  measured  lines.  In 
the  common  version,  the  four  books  into  which  the 
work  is  divided  are  arranged  as  follows : 

Book    I.  Admonitions    Useful    for    a    Spiritual    Life. 
Book     II.  Admonitions    Concerning    Inward    Things. 
Book  III.  Of  Internal  Consolation. 
Book  IV.  Concerning  Communion. 

But  in  the  revised  version,  which  follows  the  best 
manuscripts,  the  order  of  the  third  and  fourth  book 
is  changed,  and  we  have  the  following  arrangement 
and  titles : 

Book      I.  Warnings  Useful  to  a  Spiritual  Life. 
Book     II.  Warnings  to  Draw  Us  to  the  Inward  life. 


322  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Book  III.  A  Pious  Encouragement  to  the  Holy  Communion. 
Book  IV.  A  Book  of  Inward  Consolation. 

In  my  copy  of  the  revised  version  the  translator  has 
indicated  by  marginal  dates  how  the  whole  book  may 
be  read  through  in  a  year  by  reading  from  twelve  to 
thirty  lines  a  day,  according  to  the  paragraphs.  This 
is  a  good  suggestion.  It  is  not  a  book  to  read 
through  at  one  sitting.  Probably  those  who  like  it 
best  have  never  read  it  through  as  you  read  a  story. 
It  is  a  book  to  snatch  a  few  sentences  from  when  you 
are  tired  and  sleepless,  a  book  to  look  into  when  you 
arise  in  the  morning  fresh  and  hopeful,  a  book  to  pick 
a  sentence  from  when  you  are  cross  and  peevish,  a 
book  to  quiet  yourself  by  when  you  are  very  happy 
or  very  sad.  Much  of  it  is  beyond  childhood  and 
behind  old  age,  but  there  is  in  it  something  for  every 
life  and  for  every  mood  of  life. 

All  this  is  true  of  the  book  because  it  is  not  a 
book  about  the  things  that  we  may  get  and  lose.  It  is 
not  a  description  of  things  that  we  can  go 
to  and  then  go  away  from.  It  is  not  about 
clothes,  or  money,  or  lands.  Here  is  no  gos- 
sip about  good  or  bad  people.  It  is  not  a  descrip- 
tion of  stars  or  flowers,  of  country  or  of  city,  but  it  is 
a  book  about  love  and  virtue,  honesty  and  indus- 
try. It  is  a  book  about  life.  It  is  a  book  about  things 
within,  a  book  of  the  heart  and  the  mind.  But  you 
ask  me  about  the  text : 

It  is  for  service  you  are  here; 
Not  for  a  throne. 


ABOUT  THRONES  323 

Or,  as  you  have  it  in  your  version — 

Thou   earnest  to   serve,  not   rule. 

We  are  here  to  be  servants,  not  masters.  Everything 
that  has  a  permanent  place  in  the  world  must  be  a 
servant.  The  earthworm,  as  Darwin  has  shown  us, 
is  the  great  farmer  of  nature.  It  not  only  plows  the 
soil,  but  it  makes  the  soil.  The  cactus  prepares  the 
way  for  the  grass,  the  grass  for  the  tree,  the  tree 
for  corn  and  wheat,  for  apples  and  grapes,  and  these 
give  to  the  life  of  the  beast,  the  beast  to  the  life  of 
man,  and  man  to  the  life  of  the  world. 

How  serve?  I  do  not  know.  In  any  way,  only 
so  that  it  is  giving  of  ourselves.  If  the  story  of 
Thomas  Littlehammer  and  his  great  little  book  teaches 
us  anything,  it  teaches  us  that  we  cannot  choose  our 
service.  The  best  service  is  that  which  we  cannot 
help  doing.  It  is  doing  the  next  thing  in  the  most 
willing  way  that  we  can,  doing  it  quickly,  doing  it 
gladly,  doing  it  simply. 

Brother  Thomas  probably  wrote  the  book  for  his 
pupils,  the  children  of  his  Confirmation  Class.  He 
did  not  think  it  was  much  of  a  book,  and  the  world 
rated  it  no  higher  than  he  did.  The  world  neglected  to 
sing  it,  forgot  how  to  use  it.  The  book  even  lost  its 
name,  and  was  called  after  the  title  of  the  first 
chapter.  The  Imitation  of  Christ. 

It  is  not  for  you  or  for  me  to  write  a  book  that 
will  live  five  hundred  years.  It  is  not  for  us  to  copy  the 
books  of  the  masters,  to  make  precious,  costly,  beauti- 


324  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

ful  volumes  when  the  printing  press  can  make  them 
so  cheaply.  We  may  never  know  how  to  pray  either 
with  hand  or  with  heart  in  any  great  and  noble  fash- 
ion. But  we  may  always  be  like  the  little  child  in  the 
song: 

By  Alpine  lake,  'neath  shady  rock, 
The  herd  boy  knelt  beside  his  flock. 
And  softly  told,  with  pious  air, 
His  alphabet  as  evening  prayer. 

Unseen,  his  pastor  lingered  near. 
"My  child,  what  means  the  sound  I  hear? 
May  I  not  in  the  worship  share, 
And  raise  to  heaven  my  evening  prayer? 

"Where'er  the  hills  and  valleys  blend, 
The  sounds  of  prayer  and  praise  ascend. 
My  child,  a  prayer  yours  cannot  be: 
You've  only  said  your  A  B  C." 

"I  have  no  better  way  to  pray: 
All  that  I  know,  to  God  I  say; 
I  tell  the  letters  on  my  knees : 
He  makes  the  words  himself  to  please." 

The  scholars  have  found  a  curious  old  story  writ- 
ten about  two  hundred  years  before  the  little  monk 
wrote  the  great  little  book  that  gives  us  our  text,  a 
story  which  teaches  in  a  pretty  way  the  truth  that 
our  service  is  a  matter  not  of  "what"  but  of  "how," 
not  of  the  thing  we  do  but  of  the  way  we  do  it,  not 
of  the  amount  of  our  doing,  but  of  our  willingness. 
Hear  the  story  of  "Our  Lady's  Tumbler."  A  min- 
strel who  used  to  go  up  and  down  the  world  playing 
on  his  lute,  dancing  before  proud  people's  houses,  and 


■  ABOUT  THRONES  325 

tumbling  in  the  public  square  for  the  amusement  of 
the  crowd,  grew  tired  of  his  frivolity  and  ashamed 
of  his  tumbling,  leaping,  and  dancing,  and  sought 
admission  into  the  holy  house,  where  the  praying 
monks  stayed.  He  joined  the  Holy  Order  of  Clair- 
vaux,  but  when  he  was  admitted,  he  found  to  his 
great  sorrow  that  he  did  not  know  how  to  chant.  He 
could  not  say  the  creed  or  sing  the  "Ave  Maria."  He 
did  not  even  know  the  Lord's  Prayer.  He  knew 
only  how  to  tumble,  leap,  and  dance,  and  when  he 
saw  the  pious  men  at  their  high  prayers  and  heard 
them  sing  their  beautiful  hymns,  he  was  sore  dis- 
tressed, for  he  knew  not  how  to  serve  his  Lord  and 
Master  in  such  a  way.  So  he  hid  himself  in  shame 
in  the  dark  crypt  of  the  monastery.  There  to  his 
delight  he  came  upon  the  image  of  Holy  Mary  neg- 
lected in  the  dim  shadows  of  the  lower  arches,  in 
what  you  might  call  the  cathedral  cellar.  In  his 
despair  he  threw  aside  his  robe  and  said,  "I  will  not 
be  like  a  tethered  ox  doing  nought  but  browse.  I  can- 
not serve  thee  by  chanting;  I  will  serve  thee  in  tum- 
bling. Sweet  lady,  despise  not  what  I  know,  for  I 
would  fain  serve  you  in  good  faith  and  without 
guile." 

So  the  tumbler  began  his  leaps  before  the  Virgin. 
He  leaped  low  and  he  leaped  high,  first  under,  then 
over.  He  threw  himself  on  his  knees.  He  vaulted  the 
French  vault,  and  the  Spanish  vault.  He  strained 
himself  as  dancers  did  in  Brittany,  as  they  did  in 
Lorraine,  until  the  sweat  rolled  down  his  brow;  and 


326  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

he  said,  "Lady,  despise  not  your  slave.  I  adore  you 
with  heart,  body,  and  feet,  for  I  cannot  other- 
wise." Then  a  great  peace  came  into  his  Hfe,  and 
day  by  day  as  the  other  brethren  went  to  their  chant- 
ings,  he  went  below,  laid  aside  his  vestments,  and 
danced  and  vaulted,  sprang  and  tumbled  at  the  feet 
of  the  heavenly  queen.  At  last  one  of  the  brethren, 
curious  to  know  how  this  converted  minstrel  wor- 
shiped, followed  and  watched  him,  and  reported  the 
dreadful  scandal  to  the  abbot.  But  the  abbott  was  a 
wise  man.  He  cautioned  the  monk  to  speak  to  no 
one,  and  went  and  concealed  himself  and  watched  this 
novice  at  his  worship.  And  as  he  looked  he  was 
astounded,  for  he  saw,  or  thought  he  saw,  the  holy 
mother  in  actual  presence  come  down  from  heaven  to 
fan  the  exhausted  tumbler.  And  the  abbot  knew  that 
even  the  minstrel's  poor  service  was  acceptable, 
because  it  was  the  sincere  service  of  his  heart,  the 
offering  of  the  only  thing  he  could  do  in  the  best  way 
he  could  do  it.  And  when  he  came  to  die,  the  abbot 
caused  the  monks  to  sing  at  his  bedside,  and  when 
dead  to  bury  him  with  honor.  Then  the  abbot  told 
the  brethren  what  he  had  seen  in  the  crpyt.  "Of  a 
truth,  he  worshiped  well.  God  grant  that  our  service 
may  be  as  acceptable,"  said  the  holy  man. 

This  reminds  me  of  one  of  Tolstoy's  stories  about 
a  great  archbishop  who  visited  three  mendicants  upon 
an  island,  who  spent  their  days  in  simple  kindness 
and  loving  helpfulness.  The  archbishop  asked  them 
how  they  prayed,  and  was  shocked  to  find  that  they 


ABOUT  THRONES  327 

knew  only  one  prayer,  and  it  was  simply  this :  "You 
three  have  mercy  on  us  three."  The  archbishop  was 
sorry  that  they  had  no  more  knowledg-e  of  religion 
than  this,  and  so  with  great  labor  he  taught  them 
the  Lord's  Prayer.  They  were  not  apt  scholars. 
They  would  forget  the  first  part  while  they  were 
reciting  the  last,  and  when  they  had  gone  through 
the  first  part  they  would  forget  the  last.  But 
finally  they  acquired  the  whole  of  the  Lord's  Prayer, 
and  the  good  bishop,  encouraged,  took  ship  and  left 
them,  thinking  he  had  advanced  them  far  in  the  holy 
life.  But  the  ship  had  sailed  only  a  little  way  when 
lo,  hurrying  over  the  water  came  a  little  boat  with  the 
three  mendicants.  The  bishop's  big  ship  hove  to,  and 
the  hermits  climbed  to  the  deck  and  said,  "Good 
bishop,  we  have  forgotten  the  prayer;  please  teach  it 
us  again."  Then  the  bishop  crossed  himself  and  said, 
"Acceptable  to  God  is  your  own  prayer.  Go  back  to 
your  simple  and  loyal  life,  and  pray  for  us."  The 
next  morning  there  seemed  to  be  a  shining  place  on 
the  ship  where  the  simple  mendicants  had  come 
aboard. 

It  is  not  the  "prayers"  we  say,  but  the  praying 
life  that  lasts  the  longest  and  goes  the  farthest. 

When  Berengaria,  the  noble  queen  of  Richard 
Coeur  de  Lion,  came  to  die,  so  runs  the  legend,  she 
called  the  mother  superior  of  the  nunnery  to  her  side 
and  asked  for  the  jeweled  blade  which  King 
Richard  had  worn  when  he  fought  for  his  Savior's 
grave  in  Palestine.     She  then  with  his  sharp  blade 


328  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

cut  off  her  long  tresses  of  golden  hair,  and  asked  the 
faithful  sisters  to  braid  it  into  twelve  slender  chains 
and  weave  them  into  one  shining  rope,  "soft  as  silk 
and  strong  as  hempen  cable."  The  sisters  wrought 
all  night,  and  brought  the  chain  to  her  with  the 
morning  light.  She  pressed  it  with  her  two  white 
hands,  and  said  with  her  dying  breath : 

My  liege  lord  sleeps  in  Fontevraud,  and  there 
Above  his  tomb  hang  ye  a  jeweled  lamp 
Swinging  from  this  fair  chain — sole  part  of  me 
That  age  can  wither  not,  nor  time  deface! 
Let  the  lamp  burn  with  ever-during  flame. 

The  hair  of  the  head  is  said  to  be  the  most  imperish- 
able part  of  the  human  body,  but  helpful  deeds, 
kindly  thoughts,  loving  service,  outlast  the  very  hairs 
of  our  head,  and  from  them  may  be  woven  a  chain  to 
suspend  the  swinging  sanctuary  lamp  that  shall  give 
light  and  sanctity  to  many  when  we  are  gone. 

But  better  than  these  quaint  legends,  these  old 
stories  wrought  into  beautiful  poems,  are  the  joy  and 
light  that  are  shed  by  the  humble  and  willing  ones 
here  today,  the  good  things  that  are  being  done, 
the  kind  things  that  are  being  said,  the  pure  loves  that 
sweeten  the  life  of  our  own  day. 

A  few  months  ago  in  Alabama  I  saw  unfor- 
tunate men  cleaning  the  streets  of  a  proud  city,  with 
ball  and  chain  fastened  to  their  ankles.  I  saw  men 
hobbled  with  chains,  carrying  lumber  and  working 
in  coal  mines.  This  seems  to  the  judges  and  legisla- 
tors of  Alabama  the  best  way  to  deal  with  what  they 


ABOUT  THRONES  329 

call  "criminals."  College  graduates,  men  who  have 
been  in  Congress,  and  preachers  of  religion  looked  on 
approvingly  day  by  day  and  said,  "There  is  nothing 
else  to  do!"  But  a  colored  man  whose  parents  had 
been  slaves,  who  earned  his  living  by  giving  baths  to 
sick  people,  said  to  the  mayor  and  the  police  justice 
of  that  city,  "Give  to  me  your  convict  women,  those 
that  are  now  lying  in  idle  corruption  in  your  jails, 
surrounded  by  degradation,  and  I  will  see  what  I  can 
do  with  them."  Mayor  and  Judge  said,  in  their 
imbecility  and  incredulity,  "What  can  you  do  with 
these  degraded  women?"  He  replied,  "Let  me  try, 
I  only  ask  you  to  give  me  your  washing  and  help  me 
get  the  dirty  clothes  of  your  neighbors."  And  they 
in  their  despair  consented. 

The  young  man  then  bought  a  rickety  old  laundry 
on  the  outskirts  of  the  town  and  furnished  it  in  a 
primitive  way.  He  and  his  intelligent  young  wife 
went  out  there  to  live,  and  they  said  to  these  colored 
women,  "Come  and  live  with  us.  We  will  give  you 
work  and  pay  you  for  it.  We  will  give  you  home, 
advice,  sympathy,  and  protection."  The  young  color- 
ed man,  who  had  to  earn  the  daily  bread  for  wife 
and  three  children  by  hard  toil  each  day,  said,  "I 
will  become  sponsor  for  you  before  the  law." 

All  this  had  happened  only  a  few  weeks  pre- 
vious to  my  visit.  This  colored  man  took  me  to  see 
his  laundry,  and  the  judge  of  the  police  court  went 
out  with  us  for  the  first  time  to  see  those  whom  he 
had  originally  sentenced  to  prison  and  then  recom- 


330  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

mitted  to  the  laundry.  We  found  there  twelve  or 
fifteen  women,  sober  and  obedient,  attentive  to  their 
work,  law  abiding,  unguarded,  and  willing  to  stay, 
though  they  might  escape.  The  women  ceased  their 
washing  and  gathered  around  the  ironing-tables  to 
listen  while  we  talked.  I  told  them  they  were  "good 
enough  for  God,"  though  the  world  cast  them  out, 
and  that  "beneath  the  troubled  surface  of  their 
crime  there  lies  a  depth  of  purity  immovable."  The 
judge  with  tear-dimmed  eyes  confessed  his  delight, 
and  said  to  them:  "This  man  ']im  has  solved  the 
problems  that  our  statute  books  have  failed  to  solve. 
I  am  a  college  graduate ;  I  have  studied  law ;  I  have  a 
commission  from  the  governor  of  the  State  of  Ala- 
bama ;  but  'Jim'  has  taught  me  what  I  have  not  found 
in  my  law  books."  And  then  "Jim"  bore  his  testi- 
mony to  the  faithful  service,  the  temperate  lives,  the 
willing  labor  of  those  women,  whose  chief  anxiety 
now  was  that  they  might  not  be  thrust  back  into  the 
bondage  of  the  street  when  their  sentences  expired. 
They  want  to  stay  with  honest  people  where 
high  purposes,  Bible  thoughts,  kind  words,  and 
brotherly  and  sisterly  contact  may  continue  to 
sweeten  their  wretchedness  and  sanctify  their  work 
at  the  washtub. 

It  is  for  service  you  are  here; 

Not  for  a  throne. 

But  what  of  "Jim?"  Did  he  look  tired  under 
this  load  of  responsibility  which  included  the  heavy 
money  debt  necessary  to   inaugurate  and  carry  oh 


ABOUT  THRONES  331 

this  work?  Not  in  the  least.  He  does  not  need  our 
pity,  though  he  does  deserve  our  help.  He  had  the 
joy  of  a  good  work.  He  knew  the  strength  of  the 
old  colored  servant  whose  young  mistress  pitied  him 
because  he  had  to  carry  her  in  his  arms  from  the  boat 
to  the  dry  land. 

"I  am  so  heavy,"  she  said. 

"Don't  you  mind  me,  missis,  I  done  gone  toted 
ba'ls  o'  sugar  befo'." 

If  we  can  only  interpret  our  load,  whatever  it 
may  be,  in  terms  of  helpfulness,  turn  our  burdens  into 
sweetness,  we  can  carry  them  more  easily  and  for  a 
longer  time. 

My  sermon  is  preached.  The  text,  I  trust,  will 
stay  with  you  and  help  you  to  emulate  the  life  of 
the  carpenter's  son,  the  life  that  made  the  cross  more 
beautiful  than  the  crown,  converted  sorrow  into 
something  higher  than  joy,  and,  through  pain  and 
opposition,  found  the  truth  that  is  light  and  the  life 
that  is  grace. 


"LINCOLN  SOLDIERS" 


"LINCOLN  SOLDIERS" 

Lincoln  soldiers  were  our  fathers,  in  the  name  of  Liberty. 

As  Christ  died  to  make  men  holy,  as  they  died  to  make  men 

free, 
We  would  live  to  crown  that  dying  with  a  grandeur  yet  to  he, 

As  Love  goes  marching  on. 

Chorus: 

Glory,  glory  hallelujah,  etc. 

Lincoln  soldiers  were  our  fathers,  Lincoln  soldiers  would  we  he. 
We  would  live  for  Truth  and  Justice  as  they  died  for  Liberty, 
We  would  learn  today's  new  duties  from  each  fresh  occasion's 
plea. 
As  Right  goes  marching  on. 

We  would  stop  the  mouths  of  cannons  booming  over  land  and 

sea. 
We  would  crown  the  hero's  priceless  gift  with  gentler  ministry, 
We  would  rim  with  white  the  banner  that  they  flung  above  the 

free. 
As  Peace  goes  marching  on. 

Lincoln  soldiers  marching  omvard  in  the  morning's  golden  glow, 
We  would  pluck  the  wayside  thistle  and  lay  its  proud  head  low, 
We  would  plant  a  flower  wherever  there  is  room  for  flower  to 
groiv. 
As  Youth  goes  marching  on. 

Evelyn    H.   Walker 


XVIII 
"LINCOLN  SOLDIERS" 

Die  when  I  may,  I  want  it  said  of  me  by  those  who  knew 
me  best,  that  I  always  plucked  a  thistle  and  planted  a  flower 
when  I  thought  a  flower  would  grow. — Abraham   Lincoln 

Let  me  tell  you  of  the  circumstances  under  which 
the  good  Abraham  Lincoln  spoke  the  words  of  your 
class  motto. 

In  a  little  book  recently  published,  entitled  Lin- 
coln in  Story,  by  Silas  G.  Pratt,  a  book  which  I  wish 
you  all  might  own  and  which  you  can  certainly  all 
read,  Mr,  Pratt  tells  us  that  these  words  were  spoken 
to  Lincoln's  early  friend,  Joshua  R.  Speed,  who  kept 
a  store  in  Springfield  in  the  early  days  of  Illinois. 

When  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  awkward  young  man 
from  New  Salem,  came  with  his  saddle  bags  to 
Springfield  on  a  borrowed  horse  for  the  purpose  of 
opening  a  law  office,  Joshua  Speed  invited  him  to 
share  his  bed  in  the  vacant  loft  above  the  store, 
because  it  made  Lincoln  so  sad  when  he  thought  he 
should  have  to  go  in  debt  to  the  extent  of  sixteen 
dollars  and  some  odd  cents,  the  sum  which  a  bed  and 
bedding  would  cost  him  if  he  undertook  to  furnish  a 
room  for  himself. 

This  good  and  wise  friend  was  in  Washington 
about  ten  days  before  Lincoln's  second  inauguration. 
The   closing   days   of   Congress   were   making  great 

335 


336  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

demands  upon  the  President.  There  were  many  bills 
to  sign.  The  great  war  was  at  its  full  height.  Per- 
haps a  million  men  were  under  arms,  and  awful 
issues  were  pending.  Washington  was  full  of  visitors 
— politicians  seeking  appointments  for  themselves 
or  their  friends,  contractors  and  speculators  pushing 
their  business,  unhappy  mothers,  discouraged  wives, 
and  forlorn  fathers,  seeking  furloughs,  discharges, 
or  pardons  for  soldiers  that  were  sick,  weak,  or  in 
disgrace.  This  great  tide  of  complaints,  grievances, 
and  petitions  surged  through  the  President's  room 
from  morning  till  night,  until  he  was  worn  down  in 
health  and  spirit.  Mr.  Speed  in  his  descripton  of  the 
occasion  says : 

The  hour  had  arrived  to  close  the  door  against  all  further 
callers.  No  one  was  left  in  the  room  excepting  the  President, 
myself,  and  two  ladies,  dressed  in  humble  attire,  who  had  been 
sitting  near  the  fireplace,  modestly  waiting  their  turn.  The 
President  turned  to  them  and  said :  "Well,  ladies,  what  can  I 
do  for  you?"  Then  both  began  to  speak  at  once.  One  was 
the  wife  and  the  other  the  mother  of  a  man  who  was  in  prison 
for  having  resisted  the  draft  in  Pennsylvania.  "Give  me  your 
petition,"  said  the  President.  "We  have  got  no  petition.  We 
could  not  write  one  and  had  no  money  to  pay  for  writing  it, 
and  we  thought  it  best  to  come  and  see  you,"  said  the  aged 
mother.  "Oh,"  said  the  President,  "I  understand  your  case." 
Then  he  rang  his  bell  and  sent  a  messenger  to  the  proper 
officer  asking  him  to  bring  a  list  of  those  who  were  in  prison 
for  this  offense.  Mr.  Lincoln  asked  if  there  were  any  differences 
in  the  charges  or  degrees  of  guilt.  The  officer  replied,  "None." 
"Well,"  said  the  President,  "these  fellows  have  suffered  long 
enough.     I  have  thought  so   for  some  time.     Now  my  mind  -is 


"LINCOLN  SOLDIERS"  337 

made  up  on  the  subject.  I  believe  I  will  turn  out  the  whole 
flock.  So  draw  up  the  order,  General,  and  I  will  sign  it."  This 
was  done,  and  the  general  left  the  room.  Turning  to  the 
women,  the  President  said :  "Now  ladies,  you  can  go ;  3'our  man 
will  be  home  to  meet  you."  The  younger  of  the  two  ran 
forward  and  knelt  in  thankfulness.  "Get  up,"  he  said,  "don't 
kneel  to  me,  but  thank  God  and  go."  The  old  lady  seized  his 
big  hand  in  both  of  hers  and  said,  "Good-bye,  Mr.  Lincoln,  I 
shall  probably  never  see  you  again  till  we  meet  in  heaven."  The 
President  was  deeply  moved.  He  instantly  took  her  right  hand 
in  both  his  own  and  said :  "I  am  afraid  with  all  my  troubles 
I  shall  never  get  to  the  resting-place  you  speak  of,  but  if  I  do 
I  am  sure  I  shall  find  you.  That  you  wish  me  to  get  there  is,  I 
believe,  the  best  wish  you  could  make  for  me.     Good-bye." 

Said  Mr.  Speed:  "Lincoln,  with  my  knowledge  of  your 
nervous  sensibility,  it  is  a  wonder  to  me  that  such  scenes  do  not 
kill  you."  With  a  languid  voice  the  President  replied :  "Yes, 
you  are  to  a  certain  degree  right ;  I  ought  not  to  undergo  what 
I  often  do.  I  am  very  unwell  now.  My  feet  and  hands  of  late 
seem  to  be  always  cold,  and  I  ought,  perhaps,  to  be  in  bed;  but 
things  of  the  sort  you  have  just  seen  do  not  hurt  me.  To  tell 
the  truth,  that  scene  is  the  only  thing  today  that  has  made  me 
forget  my  condition  or  given  me  any  pleasure.  I  have  in  that  way 
made  two  people  happy  and  alleviated  the  distress  of  many  a 
poor  soul  whom  I  never  expect  to  see.  That  old  lady  was  no 
counterfeit.  The  mother  spoke  out  in  all  the  features  of  her 
face.  It  is  more  than  one  can  often  say,  that  in  doing  right  he 
has  made  two  people  happy  in  one  day.  Speed,  die  when  I  may,  I 
want  it  said  of  me  by  those  who  knew  me  best,  that  I  ahvays 
plucked  a  thistle  and  planted  a  Aower  when  I  thought  a  -flower 
would  grow. 

Surely  you  have  chosen  a  beautiful  motto,  and 
the  motto  grows  more  beautiful  when  it  is  placed  in 
its  proper  setting  and  we  know  the  conditions  under 


338  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

which  it  was  spoken.  Can  we  reaHze  the  circum- 
stances? The  White  House,  beset  by  the  influential, 
the  wealthy,  the  cultured,  and  the  beautiful;  the  floors 
of  Congress  teeming  with  excited  life;  the  great 
armies  of  Grant,  Sherman,  and  the  others  forming  a 
great  battle  line  reaching  from  Maryland  to  Texas; 
and  here,  at  the  close  of  the  fatiguing  day,  were  two 
unlettered  women  from  Pennsylvania,  too  simple  or 
too  ignorant  to  write  a  petition  or  to  know  the  proper 
way  of  approaching  a  President.  They  did  not  know 
enough,  or  were  not  rich  enough,  to  secure  the 
services  of  a  lawyer,  a  congressman,  or  an  ''influen- 
tial friend,"  such  as  represent  the  usual  way  of 
reaching  the  President.  He  was  too  tired  and  too 
busy  to  look  into  details,  but  he  was  too  just  to  be 
partial.  He  knew  there  were  others  in  prison  as  the 
result  of  the  same  rash  act,  the  same  mistake;  and 
he  knew  further  that  men  are  not  made  better  by 
imprisonment.  His  tender  heart  had  for  some  time 
felt  that  "these  fellows  have  suffered  long  enough," 
hence  he  gave  the  order,  "Turn  out  the  whole  flock," 
so  as  to  be  sure  the  son  and  husband  of  these  poor 
women  "in  humble  attire,"  as  Mr.  Speed  put  it,  was 
among  them,  and  sent  the  women  home  rejoicing. 

My  dear  children,  you  do  not  need  any  further 
help  from  me  to  find  a  sermon  in  this  beautiful  text 
which  you  have  chosen  and  the  more  beautiful  story 
that  enshrines  it,  but  let  us  try  to  think  it  out  together. 
First,  we  will  think  of  the  man  who  gave  us  our 
text;  then  of  the  "Lincoln  soldiers"  whom  he  led  and 


"LINCOLN  SOLDIERS"  339 

inspired;  and  after  that  we  will  think  of  the 
"thistles"  and  the  "flowers"  which  you  and  I  may 
pluck  or  plant. 

First,  the  man.  Oh,  how  the  story  tempts  us. 
What  a  great  story  it  is  of  this  man,  born  in  the  log 
cabin  with  clay  floor,  in  the  wild  woods  of  Kentucky 
— the  man  whose  father  held  him  on  his  knee  while 
he  told  the  sad  story  of  a  grandfather  shot  dead  by 
the  lurking  Indian  in  sight  of  his  three  little  boys. 
He  told  how  the  elder  ran  to  the  cabin,  seized  the 
musket,  and  laid  the  Indian  low,  while  the  second 
ran  to  the  fort,  three  miles  off,  to  give  the  alarm. 
And  little  Thomas,  only  six  years  old,  was  spared  to 
be  the  father  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

"God  bless  my  mother,"  Lincoln  once  said  to  a 
friend,  "To  her  I  owe  all  that  I  am  or  hope  to  be  in 
the  world."  But  when  the  boy  was  nine  years  old, 
in  another  cabin,  deep  in  the  forests  of  Indiana,  the 
little  mother  sickened.  With  her  hand  upon  his 
head  she  asked  him  to  remember  the  Bible  stories  she 
had  taught  him,  to  keep  God's  day  holy,  to  tell  no 
lies,  to  say  no  wicked  words,  to  read  the  Bible  which 
had  been  her  comfort  and  strength;  and  then  she 
died,  and  when  the  neighbors  came  little  Abe  sobbed, 
"I  haven't  any  mother  now."  About  this  time  Abe 
was  learning  to  write,  and  he  wrote  for  his  father 
to  the  good  old  elder  they  had  known  in  Kentucky, 
asking  him  to  come  and  say  a  word  over  his  mother's 
grave.  It  took  three  months  for  the  letter  to  go  and 
the  preacher  to  come,  but  he  came  at  last,  the  neigh- 


340  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

bors  gathered  under  the  trees  around  the  grave,  and 
the  heart  of  Httle  Abe  was  sweetened  and  strengthened. 

I  cannot  dwell  on  this  story.  You  know  a  part  of 
it  already,  but  there  is  much  more  of  it  to  learn. 
You  may  be  sure  that  the  trees  and  the  wild  woods 
had  much  to  do  in  making  noble  the  heart  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  for  in  lonely  places  is  the  soul  com- 
panioned with  great  thoughts  and  high  purposes,  and 
in  the  solitudes  does  God  oftentimes  most  consciously 
dwell  in  the  hearts  of  his  children. 

You  know  of  the  good  stepmother,  who  "always 
understood  him."  You  know  how  he  used  to  ride 
on  horseback  with  his  bag  of  corn  through  the  deep 
woods  to  the  mill ;  how  he  earned  his  first  dollar  by 
rowing  two  passengers  to  the  middle  of  the  Ohio 
River  to  catch  the  steamer,  and  how  they  each  threw 
half  a  dollar  back  into  the  bottom  of  his  boat.  When 
he  was  a  great  President  he  said :  "It  seems  a  very 
little  thing  in  these  days,  but  that  trifle  was  an  impor- 
tant incident  in  my  life.  I  could  hardly  think  that 
by  honest  work  I  had  earned  a  dollar.  The  world 
seemed  wider  and  fairer  before  me.  I  was  a  hopeful 
boy  from  that  day." 

I  like  the  other  story,  how,  when  a  clerk  in  a 
country  store  in  Illinois,  counting  his  cash  one  even- 
ing, he  found  that  he  had  made  a  mistake  in  change, 
and  had  taken  six  cents  too  much  from  a  woman 
who  lived  three  miles  away.  And  after  the  store  was 
closed  that  night,  he  walked  the  six  miles  to  return 
the  sixpence. 


"LINCOLN  SOLDIERS"  341 

You  know  the  story  of  the  flatboat  that  was  built 
on  the  Sangamon  by  the  help  of  him  who  was  already 
"Honest  Abe,"  and  how  he  helped  take  the  boat 
down  the  Sangamon,  down  the  Illinois,  down  the 
Mississippi,  all  the  way  to  New  Orleans.  The  best 
part  of  this  story  is  that  when  he  saw  a  slave  auction 
block  and  heard  a  man  sell  a  colored  woman  as  he 
would  a  horse,  the  tall  raftsman  exclaimed,  "My  God, 
see  that!  If  the  chance  is  ever  given  me,  I  will  hit 
that  thing  hard !" 

Dear  and  familiar  stories  crowd  upon  me:  The 
story  of  Lincoln,  the  land  surveyor,  lending  his  horse 
to  the  poor  man  who  must  hurry  to  the  land  office 
fifteen  miles  away  to  save  his  homestead  before  the 
speculator  should  arrive  to  buy  it  from  under  his 
feet;  of  the  young  lawyer  dismounting  and  wading 
into  the  mud  to  free  a  poor  pig  that  had  become  hope- 
lessly imprisoned  under  the  fence  because  there  was 
a  look  in  that  pig's  eye  that  seemed  to  say  to  him, 
"There  goes  my  last  chance,"  and  he  could  not  stand 
it;  and  a  story  told  by  Mr.  Speed  of  an  occasion  when 
he  was  traveling  across  country  with  Lincoln  in  com- 
pany with  a  party  of  lawyers.  Missing  him  in  a 
thicket  of  wild  plum  and  crab  trees  where  the  others 
had  stopped  to  water  their  horses,  Speed  asked, 
"Where  is  Lincoln  ?"  "Oh,"  replied  one,  "the  last  I  saw 
of  him  he  was  hunting  a  nest  to  put  back  two  young 
birds  that  had  been  blown  out."  This  he  did  because,  as 
he  said,  the  cry  of  the  birds  would  have  disturbed  him 
all  night,  and  he  wanted  to  sleep.     And  so  the  narra- 


342  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

tive  grows  richer  and  deeper.  "Honest  Abe"  becomes 
the  loved  and  trusted  adviser  of  the  poor  and  the 
defender  of  the  wicked,  for  they  also  have  rights  and 
need  of  pity;  then  he  becomes  the  congressman,  the 
great  debater,  the  President,  the  emancipator,  the 
martyr. 

Now  we  come  to  the  "Lincoln  soldiers."  How 
they  did  sing — I  ought  to  say,  How  we  did  sing,  for  I 
was  one  of  them. 

We  are  coming,  Father  Abraham,  three  hundred  thousand  more, 
From    Mississippi's   winding   stream   and    from    New    England's 

shore; 
We   leave   our   plows   and   workshops,   our   wives   and    children 

dear, 
With  hearts  too  full  for  utterance,  with  but  a  silent  tear, 
We  dare  not  look  behind  us,  but  steadfastly  before ; 
We  are  coming,  Father  Abraham,  three  hundred  thousand  more ! 

Oh,  the  terrible  war,  four  years  long !  More  than 
2,000,000  soldiers,  first  and  last,  were  under  his 
leadership,  and  perhaps  half  as  many  earnest,  honest, 
deluded  men  on  the  other  side,  for  whom  he  also 
yearned  with  a  father's  love  and  a  mother's  pity. 
"Linkum  soldiers,"  the  colored  people  called  the 
northern  men,  and  the  colored  people  that  flocked  by 
the  thousands  to  the  camps  of  those  "Linkum 
soldiers"  were  called  in  turn  "contrabands" — con- 
trabands of  war — because  they  were  property,  owned 
by  those  who  were  in  rebellion  against  the  govern- 
ment, and  our  government  confiscated  them  under 
the  articles  of  war,  as  it  confiscated  cotton  or  mules, 
corn  or  steamboats. 


"LINCOLN  SOLDIERS"  343 

Some  of  these  Lincoln  soldiers  were  your  fathers, 
uncles,  and  grandfathers.  You  know  many  of  them. 
I  well  remember  the  circumstances  under  which  I 
first  heard  that  name  applied  to  me.  It  was  when  I 
lay  in  a  Corinth  cornfield  with  a  crushed  ankle.  A 
"contraband"  had  brought  some  water  from  a  distant 
spring,  and  another  was  bathing  my  painful  ankle. 

A  great-hearted  old  aunty  was  fanning  me  and 
chafing  my  brow.  Solicitous  for  her  patient,  she 
called  to  the  gathering  crowd :  "Stand  back  there ! 
It  am  a  Linkum  soldier  who  has  done  gone  an'  got 
run  over.  Stand  back,  I  say;  give  'm  air."  The 
phrase  "Linkum  soldier"  went  through  me  with  a 
thrill.  I  was  proud  of  the  title  then;  I  am  more 
proud  of  the  title  now.  "Lincoln  soldier"  then  meant 
one  who  believed  in  liberty  for  all  men;  one  who 
thought  that  a  black  man  was  a  man  loved  of  God 
and  that  he  should  be  respected  by  all  the  children  of 
God.  "Lincoln  soldier"  then  meant  loyalty  to  the 
stars  and  stripes,  reverence  for  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence, fidelity  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  "Lincoln  soldier"  then  meant  that,  if  need 
be,  one  would  die  for  these  things.  It  meant  then 
carrying  a  sword,  using  a  musket,  or,  as  was  my  task, 
serving  the  cannon,  with  its  loud-mouthed  terrors. 
But,  even  then,  "Lincoln  soldier"  meant  a  love  for  a 
President  whose  heart  yearned  for  the  enemies  of 
his  country,  who  respected  their  feelings,  who  recog- 
nized their  rights,  who  remembered  that  they  had 
inherited  not  only  slaves  but  slavery,  that  they  were 


344  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

brought  up  to  believe  that  slavery  was  right, 
that,  as  Lincoln  said  in  his  second  great  inaugural : 

Both  armies  read  the  same  Bible  and  pray  to  the  same  God, 

and  each  invoked  his  aid  against  the  other Let  us  judge 

not  that  we  be  not  judged.  The  prayer  of  both  could  not  be 
answered,  that  of  neither  has  been  answered  fully.  The 
Almighty  has  his  own  purposes  to  fulfil. 

Fondly  do  we  hope,  fervently  do  we  pray,  that  this  mighty 
scourge  of  war  may  speedily  pass  away.  Yet  if  God  wills  that 
it  continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the  bondsman's  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and 
until  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  with  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by 
another  drawn  with  the  sword,  as  was  said  three  thousand 
years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said  that  "the  judgments  of  the 
Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether." 

With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all,  with  firm- 
ness in  the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  finish 
the  work  we  are  in— to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds,  to  care  for 
him  who  shall  have  borne  the  battle  and  for  his  widows  and  his 
orphans,  to  do  all  which  may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  a 
lasting  peace  among  ourselves  and  with  all  nations. 

Even  then,  to  be  a  "Lincoln  soldier"  was  to  be 
led  by  one  who  has  been  called  the  "prince  of  par- 
doners."   His  was  a  forgiving  heart. 

The  word  "amnesty"  means  forgetting.  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  never  wearied  of  issuing  his  proclama- 
tions of  amnesty.  One,  two,  three,  four,  and  more 
of  such  proclamations  he  issued,  promising  to  forget 
and  forgive  everything  to  those  who  would  come 
back,  relent,  and  pledge  themselves  anew  to  the 
Union  and  trust  themselves  once  more  to  the  law  of 
kindness  and  the  gospel  of  liberty  and  love. 


"LINCOLN  SOLDIERS"  345 

One  of  the  important  books  concerning  Abraham 
Lincoln  is  a  large  book  of  five  hundred  pages,  entitled 
Lincoln's  Plan  of  Reconstruction.  It  reveals  as  no 
other  one  book  does,  how  great  was  his  for- 
giving heart,  how  far-reaching  was  his  mercy, 
how  divine  was  his  patience  and  his  tender- 
ness. How  he  hated  hatred,  and  how  in  love 
with  love  was  he;  how  he  pitied  the  beaten,  how  he 
regretted  violence.  He  would  have  saved  the  coun- 
try from  war  by  having  the  government  pay  full 
value  for  every  slave  claimed  in  the  southern  states, 
only  so  that  thereafter  there  should  be  no  more  slaves. 
Now  everybody  sees  how  wise  and  just  was  the  sug- 
gestion, and  how  cheap  a  way  out  of  the  trouble  that 
would  have  been. 

We  have  gone  far  enough  now  to  see  something 
of  what  it  means  for  you  to  take  upon  yourselves  the 
title  of  "Lincoln  soldiers."  Little  boys  and  girls,  mem- 
bers of  a  church  Confirmation  class  thirty-seven  years 
after  the  gracious  President  has  been  laid  to  rest, 
with  the  nation,  aye,  the  modern  world,  in  tears  as  it 
never  was  before  or  after,  over  the  death  of  any 
other  man,  you  can  be  Lincoln  soldiers !  How  is 
that  possible?  What  can  you  do,  and,  still  more, 
how  can  you  be  worthy  the  name? 

First,  you  can,  like  the  Lincoln  soldiers  on  the 
first  roll,  love  liberty.  You  can  love  freedom,  and,  if 
necessary,  you  can  die  for  it.  You  can  hate  with  a 
divine  hatred  all  kinds  of  slavery,  and  there  are  many 
kinds  that  still  remain.     You  have  read  Uncle  Tom's 


346  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Cabin.  You  know  of  the  Emancipation  Proclama- 
tion. I  told  you  of  Lincoln's  oath  when  he  saw  the 
slave  auction.  I  want  you  to  believe  that  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  is  a  sacred  document,  that 
Lincoln  was  right,  that  your  fathers  were  right  when 
they  fought  against  slavery.  Oh,  how  bad  it  was, 
how  sad  it  was!  How  glad  we  ought  to  be  that  it  is 
all  over.  And  I  want  you  to  believe  that  the  results 
of  freedom  are  all  good.  I  want  you  to  know  more 
and  more  the  story  of  Frederick  Douglass,  of  Booker 
T.  Washington,  Paul  Dunbar,  and  the  many  other 
colored  men  and  women  that  have  risen  out  of 
slavery  and  ignorance,  obscurity  and  opposition,  to  be 
great  and  good,  to  be  wise  and  useful,  to  be  noble 
and  helpful. 

Last  month  I  was  in  Alabama.  While  there  I 
found  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  a  colored  village  which 
is  still  called  "Afriky-Town."  The  basis  of  this 
community  was  a  shipload  of  Congo  negroes  who 
were  captured  in  Africa  and  brought  to  America  to 
serve  as  slaves  just  before  the  war.  They  landed  as 
late  as  1859,  and  their  captors,  after  clothing  their 
naked  bodies  with  American  calico  and  coarse  can- 
vas, put  them  to  work  on  their  steamboats  and  plan- 
tations on  the  Alabama  river,  where  they  continued 
to  work  for  their  captors  away  up  to  the  end  of  the 
war  in  1865.  Some  fifteen  of  the  original  fifty-three 
stolen  negroes  are  still  alive.  I  shook  hands  and 
talked  with  four  of  them.  One  of  them  could  spell 
his  name,  Osia  Keeby,  the  name  which  he  said  his 


"LINCOLN  SOLDIERS"  347 

mother  gave  him  in  Dahomey.  He  was  nineteen 
years  old  when  he  came.  As  I  talked  to  him  he  pointed 
to  a  white  man  driving  by  on  the  road,  and,  drop- 
ping his  voice  said.  'Thar's  the  nephey  of  the  man 
what  brung  us  over."  Aunt  Zuma  had  the  tribal 
scars  on  her  face,  the  brand  which  was  put  upon  her 
when  a  babe.  Uncle  Peter  Lee  could  remember  well 
the  old  country,  though  he  thought  he  must  now  be  a 
hundred  years  old.  He  raised  his  withered  old  hand 
to  heaven,  and  looking  up  devoutly  as  if  he  could  see 
beyond  the  skies,  said,  "I  thank  God  I  am  free." 
Aunt  Zuma  said,  "Oh,  it  is  great  to  be  free!"  And 
then  she  crooned  for  me  a  native  hearth-song  which 
her  mother  had  taught  her.  She  hoped  her  mother 
had  heard  that  they  were  free  before  she  died. 

Lincoln  soldiers  must  love  freedom,  and  you  Lin- 
coln soldiers  of  the  second  roll  must  realize  that  there 
are  other  slaveries  than  the  slavery  of  body.  It  is 
great  to  be  free  in  mind,  to  be  free  in  conscience,  to 
be  free  from  bad  habits,  coarse  desires,  and  selfish 
motives.     Lincoln  soldiers  must  love  freedom. 

But,  freedom,  like  money,  wealth,  or  beauty,  is 
good  only  when  you  do  good  with  it.  It  is  always 
in  order  to  ask,  "What  are  you  going  to  do  with  your 
freedom,  as  with  any  other  good  thing?"  All  these 
things  have  been  a  curse  to  many,  and  may  be  a  curse 
to  you. 

There  is  a  higher  word  than  freedom  in  the  dic- 
tionary of  the  true  Lincoln  soldier,  and  that  is 
service.     The  Lincoln  soldier  seeks  not  his  own  ease, 


348  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

culture,  or  safety.  He  is  a  member  of  society,  a 
citizen  of  the  nation  and  of  the  world.  He  is  not 
like  the  old  negro  peddler  whom  I  overtook  not 
far  from  "Afriky-Town"  with  a  basket  full  of  tin- 
ware on  his  head.  He  had  cooked  in  both  armies,  he 
said,  and  they  were  both  good  to  him,  for  all  soldiers 
like  good  cooking,  and  he  was  a  good  cook.  So  far 
so  good.  But  when  I  asked :  "Are  you  sorry  that  we 
came  down  here  and  set  you  free?  Do  you  wish  you 
were  back  where  you  were  before  the  war?"  he 
replied,  "I  jes'  soon.  I  never  had  to  pay  no  taxes  or 
buy  no  clothes  then,  and  I  didn't  have  to  work  no 
harder  nor  now."  He  had  freedom,  but  he  did  not 
know  how  to  use  it.  He  had  not  learned  the  next 
word — service. 

Again,  as  Lincoln  soldiers,  you  must  live  for  an 
ideal.  Your  lives  must  be  swayed  with  great  pur- 
poses. And  yet  you  must  be  gentle,  pitiful,  and  help- 
ful.    How  ? 

Now  we  come  to  our  motto.  First,  by  plucking 
thistles.  Why  pluck  thistles?  Because  the  thistle  is 
a  coarse  plant,  that  multiplies  with  great  rapidity. 
Unless  plucked,  one  thistle  this  year  will  sow  a  garden 
full  next  year,  and  in  a  few  years  it  will  fill  the 
fields  and  make  barren  the  farm.  The  thistle  offers 
food  and  shelter  to  but  few  animals.  And  so  persist- 
ent is  it  that  the  law  of  most  states  declares  it  a 
"noxious  weed"  and  inflicts  a  penalty  upon  the 
farmer  who  permits  it  to  grow. 

A  little  more  than  six  hundred  years  ago  a  great 


"LINCOLN  SOLDIERS"  349 

preacher  named  John  Tauler,  who  was  connected 
with  the  Strasburg  Cathedral  in  Germany,  compared 
the  slaves  of  passion,  and  appetite,  the  weak  and  silly- 
men  of  his  time,  to 

foolish  asses,  which  never  learn  any  other  forms  of  speech 
than  their  own  braying,  or  seek  any  other  comfort  or  sweet- 
ness, but  only  rough,  tasteless  thistles,  while  they  have  to 
endure  scorn  and  many  a  hard  and  cruel  blow,  which  they 
really  do  not  deserve. 

These,  then,  are  the  thistles  to  be  plucked.  First, 
out  of  our  own  hearts  and  lives,  the  coarse  and 
crowding  selfishness,  the  silly  habits  that  take  posses- 
sion of  the  garden  plots  in  our  hearts.  Next,  the 
thistles  in  the  community,  the  narrow  creeds,  the 
habits  that  make  men  selfish,  make  lives  exclusive, 
make  boys  proud  and  girls  silly.  Oh,  my  children, 
pluck  these  thistles  in  order  that  you  may  have  room 
to  plant  the  flowers. 

"Plant  a  flower."  You  know  the  flowers  that  I 
would  speak  of.  You  know  the  flowers  that  grow  in 
the  Lincoln  garden.  You  know  the  flowers  which  it 
is  the  business  of  the  "Lincoln  soldier"  to  cultivate. 
The  flowers  of  kindliness,  of  helpfulness;  the  flowers 
of  the  spirit,  that  bloom  into  the  Beatitudes,  the 
Golden  Rule,  the  Ten  Commandments;  the  flowers 
that  will  naturally  grow  in  your  hearts  if  you  do  but 
give  them  an  opportunity.  I  will  ask  John  Tauler  to 
preach  to  us  again.     He  says : 

Know  this,  dear  children,  that  if  all  our  teachers  were 
buried   and   all   our   books    were   burned,   we   should   still    find 


350  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

enough  teaching  and  contrast  to  ourselves  in  the  life  and 
example  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  wherever  we  might  need  it, 
if  we  only  diligently  and  earnestly  learn  how  he  went  before, 
in  silent  patience,  in  gentleness,  in  adversity,  in  temptations,  in 
resignation,  in  scorn,  in  poverty,  and  in  all  manner  of  bitter 
suffering  and  pain. 

For,  if  we  wish  to  attain  to  great  and  fruitful  peace  in  God, 
in  nature,  but  not  of  this  world,  we  must  first  diligently  and 
earnestly  learn  to  make  the  best  of  things,  and  to  endure,  kindly 
and  meekly,  the  behavior  of  all  kinds  of  men,  their  ways  and 
customs :  for  they  will  often  try  to  afflict  us.  The  behavior  of 
other  men  and  their  ways  will  often  vex  and  displease  us ;  it 
will  seem  to  us  as  though  one  person  talked  too  much,  another 
too  little;  one  was  too  indolent,  another  too  energetic;  one  err- 
ing in  one  way,  another  in  another.  Customs  and  fashions  are 
so  many  and  so  various  that  they  assail  us  in  many  secret  and 
unsuspected  ways.  We  must  learn  to  withstand  them  all  vigor- 
ously, that  they  may  take  no  root  in  us. 

My  dear  children,  I  wish  I  could  say  in  closing 
some  things  that  you  can  remember.  I  have  loved 
you  on  account  of  your  open  minds,  your  warm 
hearts,  your  earnest  spirits.  I  know  better  than  you 
can,  for  I  speak  from  the  vantage  ground  of  my 
gray  hairs,  how  the  thistles  may  lodge  in  the  garden 
of  your  souls.  I  want  you  to  be  good  gardeners, 
worthy  the  name  of  Lincoln  soldiers.  I  would  have 
you  prompt  to  pluck  thistles  and  to  plant  flowers  in 
their  stead. 

I  mean,  boys,  the  careless  words  on  your  tongues, 
the  coarse  pictures  in  your  minds,  the  idle  habit  in 
your  lives;  I  mean  the  cigarette  and  cigar,  the  oath; 


"LINCOLN  SOLDIERS"  351 

the  indifference  to  Sunday  sanctities  that  prefers  the 
woods  or  the  golf  field  to  the  regular  habit  at  church 
and  its  many  kindred  associations  that  vvill  help  you 
keep  out  the  thistles  and  plant  the  flowers,  that  will 
make  you  clean  men,  happy  citizens,  whether  you  be 
rich  or  poor. 

I  fear,  girls,  that  I  see  better  than  you  can  the 
thistle-down  now  floating  through  the  air  around  you 
that  may  take  root  in  your  hearts ;  the  love  of  display, 
the  giddy  relish  for  shallow  companionship,  the  pas- 
sion for  dress,  the  wastefulness  of  money,  of  time, 
and  of  talent  that  will  take  you  away  from  the  dear 
love  of  books,  the  high  inspiration  of  usefulness,  the 
gentle,  simple  sweetness  of  service. 

But  I  will  trust  you.  I  believe  in  you.  I  am  sure 
that  in  one  way  or  another  you  will  overcome  the 
thistles,  or  pluck  them  out  of  the  heart  even  if  they 
should  get  lodgment,  and  that  flowers  of  your  own 
and  of  others'  planting  will  grow  there. 

I  am  glad  that  you  have  found  a  new  song  to  the 
old  tune.  May  your  class  song  inspire  a  new  cam- 
paign in  the  old  spirit,  a  campaign  of  peace,  a  war 
against  war.  May  you  so  fight  this  bloodless  battle 
that  peace  may  indeed  "go  marching  on." 


THE  GREATEST  GIFT 


Stern  daughter  of  the  voice  of  God.' 

O  Duty!  if  that  name  thou  love 

Who  art  a  light  to  guide,  a  rod 

To  check  the  erring,  and  reprove; 

Thou  who  art  victory  and  law 

When  empty  terrors  overawe; 

From  vain  temptations  dost  set  free ; 

And  calm'st  the  weary  strife  of  frail  humanity! 

There  are  who  ask  not  if  thine  eye 
Be  on  them;  who,  in  love  and  truth. 
Where  no  misgiving  is,  rely 
Upon  the  genial  sense  of  youth: 
Glad  hearts!  without  reproach  or  blot; 
Who  do  thy  work,  and  know  it  not; 
May  joy  be  theirs  while  life  shall  last! 
And    thou,    if    they    should    totter,    teach    them    to 
stand  fast! 

Serene  will  be  our  days  and  bright, 
And  happy  will  our  nature  be. 
When  love  is  an  unerring  light. 
And  joy  its  own  security. 
And  blest  are  they  who  in  the  main 
This  faith,  even  now,  do  entertain: 
Live  in  the  spirit  of  this  creed; 
Yet    find    that    other    strength,    according    to    their 
need. 

— From  Wordsworth's  "Ode  to  Duty" 


XIX 

THE  GREATEST  GIFT 

The   sense    of   duty   is   the   greatest   gift   of   God.— William 
Ellery  Channing 

This  text  interests  us,  first,  because  it  has  been 
selected  as  the  motto  of  the  Confirmation  Class  of 
1903.  It  is  always  interesting  to  watch  the  move- 
ments of  young  minds.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  discover 
thoughtfulness  in  playful  children,  to  find  seriousness 
increasing  the  joys  of  youth.  Nature  has  meant 
that  the  young  should  be  very  happy.  It  has  sur- 
charged the  beginning  of  life  with  energy;  here  there 
is  vitality  and  to  spare.  It  is  natural  for  lambs  to 
gambol,  for  colts  to  kick  up  their  heels,  for  little  dogs 
and  kittens  to  frisk  and  run,  and  it  is  as  natural 
for  boys  and  girls  to  play.  It  is  quite  right  that  child- 
hood should  be  full  of  fun.  I  like  to  watch  you  at 
your  sports.  I  stopped  last  week  to  see  a  boy  of  the 
Confirmation  Class  practice  the  high  jump  with  the 
long  pole  with  a  half  dozen  associates  in  a  vacant  lot 
on  the  boulevard.  The  cross-bar  was  put  up  higher 
than  the  heads  of  the  jumpers.  I  thought  he  could 
not  vault  over  that;  it  looked  dangerous.  How  he 
squared  himself  for  the  race!  How  he  threw  himself 
into  the  run !  How  confidently  he  planted  his  pole  at 
the  right  place  and  at  the  right  moment!  Then, 
straining  every  nerve,  up  he  rose.    How  gracefully  he 

355 


356  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

cleared  the  bar  and  alighted  on  his  feet.  "Raise  the 
bar  another  notch !"  Again  the  run  was  made  and  the 
desperate  venture  taken.  But  that  last  inch  was  too 
much.  Down  came  the  cross-bar,  pole,  boy,  and  all, 
in  a  tumble  on  the  sand.  I  was  scared.  I  thought  of 
broken  bones  and  sprained  ankles.  But  it  was  fun 
for  the  boys — most  of  all  for  the  defeated  bundle  of 
boyhood  that  scratched  himself  out  of  the  sand.  He 
tried  it  again.  This  time  he  did  it.  It  is  splendid  to 
be  a  boy — not  to  be  afraid ;  to  have  energy  enough  to 
throw  one's  self  away  up  over  the  high  cross-bar.  It  is 
splendid  to  have  sound  muscle,  steady  nerve,  and 
strengthening  bones.  So  splendid  is  it  that  a  gray- 
beard  like  myself  is  tempted  to  say  that  health,  with 
the  buoyancy  and  courage  that  belong  to  it,  is  the  very 
best  gift  of  God,  at  least  to  youth.  But  this  jump- 
ing boy  was  one  of  those  who  voted  to  take  as  the 
motto  of  the  class  the  text  that  says,  not  health,  youth, 
muscle,  nerve,  and  the  fun  that  goes  therewith,  but 
conscience,  the  sense  of  duty,  is  the  best  gift  of  God 
to  man.  And  this  class,  from  October  to  April, 
denied  themselves  the  fun  of  their  Friday  afternoons, 
and  absented  themselves  from  the  coasting,  skating, 
tobogganing  and  snow-balling,  all  so  delightful  to 
childhood,  in  order  that  they  might  attend  the  Con- 
firmation Class  where  they  would  learn  about  the 
things  of  religion  and  of  morals.  They  came  to  study 
the  story  of  man's  mind;  the  growth  of  the  church; 
the  hopes  and  fears  of  the  soul ;  and  particularly  to 
learn  of  the  great  and  good  men  who  preferred  to  do 


THE  GREATEST  GIFT  357 

hard  things,  who  dared  suffer  for  the  truth  and  die 
for  the  right. 

One  of  these  men  was  Wilham  Ellery  Channing, 
who  gave  the  class  its  motto  and  me  my  text — "The 
sense  of  duty  is  the  greatest  gift  of  God."  The  next 
sentence  amphfies  the  text.  It  reads,  "The  idea  of 
right  is  the  primary  and  the  highest  revelation  of 
God  to  the  human  mind,  and  all  higher  revelations  are 
founded  on  and  addressed  to  it.  All  mysteries  of 
science  and  theolog}^  fade  away  before  the  grandeur 
of  the  simple  perception  of  duty  which  dawns  on  the 
mind  of  the  little  child." 

Our  next  interest  in  the  text,  then,  lies  in  the  man 
who  said  it.  William  Ellery  Channing  was  one  of  the 
great  and  good  men  we  delighted  to  study.  He  was 
born  at  Newport,  R.  I.,  one  hundred  and  twenty-three 
years  ago — 1780.  He  too  was  a  jolly  boy.  He  loved 
to  play  and  was  good  at  a  game.  He  was  a  good 
wrestler  and  loved  to  do  the  daring  things.  He  was 
a  fearless  boy.  I  find  no  record  of  his  jumping,  but  I 
do  find  it  recorded  that  he  loved  to  climb  the  ship- 
masts  in  the  harbor,  and  that  once  at  least  he  slipped 
down  the  ropes  with  dangerous  rapidity.  He  wanted 
to  go  with  some  other  boys  to  spend  the  night  on 
board  an  old  vessel  that  was  said  to  be  haunted.  Mr. 
Chadwick,  his  last  and  most  interesting  biographer, 
suggests  that  the  report  was  true,  for  the  ship  was 
probably  haunted  by  rats.  But  I  will  not  let  Mr. 
Chadwick,  though  a  good  friend  of  mine,  spoil  a  boy's 
story.      Rats   are   spooky   enough   to   try   any   boy's 


358  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

nerves  when  they  run  around  in  the  dark,  are  they 
not? 

WilHam  Ellery  Channing  was  a  good  boy,  though 
not  a  "goody"  boy.  There  is  a  tradition  of  one  fight 
in  his  boy  Hfe,  when  he  gave  a  good  trouncing  to  a 
bully  much  bigger  than  himself,  because  he  was  impos- 
ing on  a  smaller  boy.  But  his  playmates  called  him 
"the  peace-maker,"  and  sometimes  "the  little  min- 
ister." An  old  relative  said  he  was  "the  most  splen- 
did child  she  ever  saw."  Some  of  his  associates 
mocked  the  young  idealist  because  "he  wanted  better 
bread  than  could  be  made  of  wheat."  But  their 
teacher  said  to  the  mockers,  "I  wish  in  my  heart  you 
were  like  William  Channing," 

He  could  say,  "Thanks  to  my  stars,  I  can  say  I 
never  killed  a  bird;  I  would  not  crush  the  meanest 
insect  that  crawls  upon  the  ground."  One  of  the 
remembered  days  in  his  life  was  when  the  tragedy 
of  a  bird's  nest  occurred — when  he  found  the  little 
ones  which  he  had  fed  killed  and  mutilated  by  some 
cruel  hand. 

William  never  learned  to  swim,  much  to  his 
regret,  because  he  would  not,  like  his  comrades,  dis- 
obey the  home  orders  that  forbade  him  the  water.  Of 
course  this  tender-hearted  boy  grew  up  to  be 
a  man  with  a  great  conscience.  At  college  he  loved 
to  be  alone.  He  read  high  books,  and  had  such  high 
dreams  that  at  times  the  world  seemed  an  inadequate 
place  for  him  to  live,  and  he  wished  he  might  die. 
Before  he  graduated  from  college  his  father  died,  and 


THE  GREATEST  GIFT  359 

in  order  to  help  his  widowed  mother  raise  his  little 
brothers  and  sisters,  he  went  to  Richmond,  Virginia, 
as  a  tutor.  Here  he  worked  hard,  lived  poorly,  slept  in 
an  outhouse,  and  wore  inadequate  clothing  that  he 
might  help  his  mother  the  more.  He  loved  the  Vir- 
ginians because  "they  talked  and  thought  less  about 
money  than  the  prudent  Yankees,"  but  he  hated 
slavery.  He  wrote,  "The  one  object  here  which 
always  depresses  me  is  slavery.  Language  cannot 
express  my  detestation  of  it.  Nature  never  made 
such  a  distinction  nor  established  such  a  relation." 
He  said,  "To  describe  it  I  should  be  obliged  to  show 
you  every  vice  heightened  by  every  meanness  and 
added  to  every  misery.  The  influence  of  slavery  on 
the  whites  is  almost  as  fatal  as  on  the  blacks  them- 
selves." This  was  the  man  who  became  the  great 
preacher  of  Boston,  the  inspirer  of  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson,  the  forerunner  of  Theodore  Parker,  the 
man  who  was  "always  young  for  liberty;"  the  pale, 
sick  man  upon  whose  words  governors,  college  pro- 
fessors, and  presidents  hung,  and  in  whom  the  poor, 
the  sick,  and  the  neglected  of  Boston  found  a  true 
friend;  the  man  who,  among  the  Green  Mountains  of 
Vermont,  could  say  with  his  dying  breath,  "I  have 
received  many  messages  from  the  spirit." 

This  interest  in  the  man  who  gave  us  the  text 
makes  us  ask.  Where  do  we  find  the  text?  Under 
what  circumstances  and  in  what  connection  did  he 
say,  "The  sense  of  duty  is  the  greatest  gift  of  God"? 
Channing  was   the  great   prophet   of   the   Unitarian 


360  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

faith.  In  18 19,  in  Baltimore,  in  preaching  the  ordi- 
nation sermon  of  Jared  Sparks,  the  man  who  after- 
ward wrote  the  most  dehghtful  books  of  history  and 
the  lives  of  Benedict  Arnold,  Ethan  Allen,  Father 
Marquette,  and  George  Washington,  which  so  inter- 
est boys  and  girls,  he  preached  the  first  of  the  four 
great  sermons  which  mark  the  growth  of  orthodox 
Christianity  through  Unitarianism  into  the  breadth 
of  the  universal  faith  that  is  the  quest  and  the  joy 
of  our  Confirmation  Class  studies. 

In  1837,  eighteen  years  after  Channing's  great 
disturbing,  mind-quickening,  heart-enlarging  sermon 
on  "Unitarian  Christianity,"  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 
gave  his  Divinity  School  Address  to  the  young  min- 
isters at  the  Cambridge  Divinity  School,  in  which  he 
sang  the  beautiful  hymn  of  faith  in  and  praise  to  the 
God  that  now  reveals  himself,  as  always,  in  the 
beauty  of  nature  around  us,  in  the  life  of  the  soul 
within. 

Four  years  after  this,  in  1841,  Theodore  Parker 
preached  his  sermon  on  "The  Transient  and  the  Per- 
manent in  Christianity,"  in  which  he  showed  that 
there  are  some  things  in  the  New  Testament  more 
true  than  others;  that  God  works  through  law,  not 
through  miracles;  that  we  need  not  believe  that  Jesus 
could  or  would  kill  a  fig  tree  by  cursing  it  or  that 
there  were  devils  which  he  could  drive  into  a  herd  of 
swine  and  drive  the  swine  into  the  sea,  because  we 
believe  with  all  our  hearts  in  the  Golden  Rule  and  the 
Beatitudes. 


THE  GREATEST  GIFT  361 

Then,  forty- four  years  later,  in  1885,  William  C. 
Gannett  preached  his  sermon  on  "The  Faith  of 
Ethics,"  in  which  he  showed  that  the  essential  thing 
in  religion  is  character;  that  the  true  test  is  the  deed 
versus  the  creed;  that  duty  is  the  measure  of  devout- 
ness;  that  every  faith  is  measured  by  its  faithfulness, 
and  that  whoever  lives  a  faithful  life,  faithful  to  duty, 
faithful  to  head  and  heart, — be  he  Pagan,  Christian 
or  Jew,  be  he  orthodox  or  liberal,  Methodist  or  Pres- 
byterian— belongs  to  the  one  true  church  of  God,  the 
great  Catholic  Church  of  Humanity. 

The  fundamental  message  of  Channing,  then,  was 
this  belief  that  men,  all  men,  being  the  children  of  a 
good  God,  are  themselves  good,  in  essence  if  not  good 
now,  good  in  the  making.  One  of  his  great  sermons 
is  entitled,  "Honor  Due  to  All  Men."  It  is  in  this 
beautiful  sermon  that  you  found  your  text,  "The  sense 
of  duty  is  the  greatest  gift  of  God."  In  this  sermon 
he  argues  that  the  only  way  to  make  one  a  lover  of 
man  is  to  reveal  to  him  something  great  and  inter- 
esting in  human  nature.  All  men,  all  kinds  of  men, 
even  the  poor,  tattered,  ragged,  drunken  men,  have 
in  them  something  admirable;  something  that  boys 
and  girls  can  revere  and  that  wise  men  and  women 
must  love.  It  has  been  said  that  "There  is  nothing 
great  in  nature  but  man,  and  nothing  great  in  man 
but  mind."  But  we  will  not  say  that,  for  nature  is 
full  of  greatness  outside  of  man.  Her  daisies  and 
her  roses,  her  torrents  and  her  mountains,  her  forests 
and  her  stars,  are  all  wonderful,  all  sublime.    And  the 


362  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

little  child  that  can  hold  the  daisy  in  its  hand  and 
reach  out  for  the  moon  can  enjoy  something  of  this 
nature.  And  in  man  everything  is  wonderful.  The 
splendid  mechanism  of  the  body,  arms,  legs,  and  eyes, 
muscle,  nerve,  and  brain,  all  are  wonderful  and  all 
are  admirable.  A  mind  that  can  draw  the  lily,  weigh 
the  star  and  measure  the  mountain  is  wonderful,  and 
the  heart  that  pets  the  dog,  that  companions  the  horse, 
that  nestles  the  babe,  that  makes  men  and  women 
cling  to  one  another,  build  homes  and  establish  gov- 
ernments, is  wonderful.  The  power  that  writes 
poetry  and  sings  it  to  great  tunes  accompanied  by 
noble  organ  tones,  built  in  great  churches,  is  all  won- 
derful. 

But  Channing  tells  us  in  this  sermon  on  the 
"Honor  Due  to  All  Men,"  that  greater  than  all  these 
is  "the  power  of  discerning  and  doing  the  right,  is  the 
higher  monitor  which  speaks  in  the  name  of  God  to 
the  capacity  of  virtue,  of  excellence,  the  sense  of 
duty,  this  is  the  greatest  gift  of  God." 

And  do  you  not,  young  as  you  are,  know  that  this 
is  true  ?  Does  not  every  child  know,  what  the  philoso- 
pher cannot  explain,  that  happiness,  power,  useful- 
ness, surely  come  only  by  doing  right?  The  sense  of 
ought  first  asks  and  then  compels  us  to  do  what  we 
do  not  want  to  do ;  to  do  hard  things ;  to  suffer  for  an 
idea  and  to  die  for  a  principle. 

Says  Immanuel  Kant,  "Two  things  command  my 
reverence:  the  starry  heavens  above  and  the  sense  of 
ought  within."    Of  these  two  things,  do  you  children 


THE  GREATEST  GIFT  3^3 

not  know  that  the  "sense  of  ought"  in  the  heart  of  a 
child  is  more  wonderful,  more  sublime,  than  a  great 
ball  of  blazing  matter  flying  through  space?  For  this 
sense  of  duty  is  that  which  makes  of  the  child  and  the 
philosopher,  the  babe  and  the  prophet,  co-workers 
with  God,  helpers  in  the  world.  It  is  that  which  calls 
upon  men  to  set  things  right,  to  keep  things  straight, 
to  make  things  plumb,  to  keep  the  balance,  to  "play 
fair"  in  the  world. 

"The  sense  of  duty  is  the  greatest  gift  of  God." 
Let  me  try  to  illustrate  what  needs  no  proving,  make 
bright  what  we  already  know,  thereby  perhaps  help- 
ing us  to  better  love  the  text  which  we  already  believe, 
and,  still  better,  to  practice  the  motto  we  have  already 
adopted. 

Over  on  the  street-corner  the  other  day  I  saw  a 
little  sparrow  in  great  luck.  It  had  found  a  beautiful 
straw,  over  a  foot  long,  a  clean,  nice,  strong  straw, 
suitable  to  become  a  great  timber  in  the  little  spar- 
row's home.  To  the  little  bird  it  was  as  big  as  an  iron 
beam  is  to  the  builder  of  a  great  Chicago  block.  The 
sparrow  looked  at  it  from  end  to  end.  He  jumped  from 
one  side  to  the  other;  he  took  hold  of  it  to  see  if  he 
could  lift  it.  He  shifted  his  position  several  times  so 
as  to  get  a  good  hold  of  it.  At  last  he  had  it  balanced ; 
he  cleared  the  ground  with  it,  but  the  wind  twisted  his 
little  neck  and  the  straw  fell  to  the  ground.  He  gave 
it  up  and  dropped  it.  And  still  he  needed  that  fine 
piece  of  timber  for  his  house.  And  so  he  tried  it  once 
more;  balanced  it;  braced  his  little  body  against  the 


364  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

wind  and  ventured.  He  made  his  spring  and  rose 
with  his  heavy  load  to  the  ledge  of  the  sign-board, 
above  the  first  story,  but  he  could  not  get  it  to  the 
place  where  he  was  building  his  house,  and  bird  and 
straw  came  down  to  earth  again.  But  he  was  not  dis- 
couraged; he  tried  once  more,  and  this  time  he  man- 
aged it.  I  could  not  follow  him  in  his  construction 
act.  I  am  sure  it  was  hard  work  to  bend  the  straw,  to 
fit  it  in,  and  brace  it  and  cement  it  where  it  belonged, 
but  I  believe  he  succeeded.  But  when  the  straw  house 
is  finished,  then  come  the  eggs  and  the  long  brooding, 
the  laborious  feeding,  the  vigilant  watching,  days  and 
nights  of  loyalty.  What  a  foolish  little  bird!  Why 
bother  with  straws  and  nests  and  little  ones?  Why 
not  live  and  be  happy,  take  the  sunshine,  gather  seed 
for  himself,  take  some  comfort  in  the  world,  have 
some  of  the  pleasures  of  life,  instead  of  all  the  while 
doing  hard  things,  all  the  while  carrying  risks,  run- 
ning dangers,  seeking  to  be  burdened  with  care  and 
responsibility? 

Why?  I  cannot  tell  you  why,  except  that  in  doing 
the  hard  things,  in  yielding  to  this- — yes,  I  will  call  it 
the  sense  of  duty — this  groping  for  usefulness,  this 
something  that  makes  of  the  bird  a  nest-builder,  a 
bird-feeder,  it  thereby  becomes  a  creator  with  God, 
making  the  bird  more  than  the  straw,  as  the  straw  is 
more  than  the  dust  out  of  which  it  grew,  and  the  dust 
which  nourished  the  wheat  more  than  the  rocks  out 
of  which  it  was  crumbled. 

So  it  is  that  this  sense  of  duty  which  calls  upon 


THE  GREATEST  GIFT  365 

you  and  upon  me,  which  guides  you  and  guides  me, 
which  pushes  you  and  pushes  me  to  do  the  things  we 
do  not  want  to  do,  to  stand  in  the  strain,  to  hft  heavy 
burdens,  to  go  without  comforts,  to  seek  weariness 
and  not  rest,  to  sweat  and  not  sleep,  is  the  greatest 
gift  of  God  to  us  because  it  makes  us  creators  with 
God,  makers  of  something,  and  through  this  making 
we  prove  our  divinity,  we  estabHsh  our  kinship  with 
God,  become  indeed  the  children  of  God. 

It  is  not  easy  to  keep  this  text  in  mind.  You  will 
often  be  reminded,  even  by  those  who  ought  to  know 
better,  that  you  will  have  to  "take  care  of  yourselves, 
for  nobody  else  will;"  that  "one  is  a  fool  who  works 
too  hard  for  others,  for  he  will  get  no  thanks  for  it." 
Many  men  and  many  forces  are  ready  to  teach  you 
that  money,  position,  style,  beauty,  good  clothes,  and 
many  of  them,  nice  houses,  with  the  books,  horses,  and 
automobiles  that  go  therewith  are  the  things  most 
worthy  of  your  quest;  that  these  are  the  things  that 
make  living  worth  while.  Don't  you  trust  them. 
Believe  me,  they  are  lying  forces.  All  these  things  are 
desirable,  but  only  when  they  come  in  the  line  of  duty 
and  when  they  are  forever  subordinated  to  duty.  Be- 
lieve me,  children,  there  is  more  costly  and  elegant 
agony  in  the  world  than  you  can  possibly  understand. 
Oh,  there  is  such  misery  in  luxury,  such  weariness  in 
wealth,  such  dreariness  in  style  when  duty  is  ignored 
or  slighted  in  order  to  secure  them. 

On  my  recent  trip  to  the  Pacific  Coast  there  was 
a  bright  little  boy  on  the  train,  going  with  his  parents 


366  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

to  find  a  new  home  in  the  sunny  land  of  California. 
He  had  been  to  school  but  one  summer,  but  it  was  an 
old-fashioned  country  school  and  he  had  learned  many 
things.  He  knew  all  the  states  and  their  capitals;  he 
could  spell  words  of  three  and  four  syllables ;  he  could 
tell  of  the  curious  things  that  he  was  going  to  see  in 
California — of  the  boats  with  glass  bottoms  that 
revealed  sea-trees  and  sea-horses  and  the  great  fish 
and  the  curious  coral  that  live  at  the  bottom  of  the 
sea.  He  knew  about  the  big  orange  orchards,  the 
eucalyptus  groves,  and  the  hedges  of  calla  lilies.  He 
said  he  was  going  to  Los  Angeles,  a  fine  big  city. 
One  day  I  asked  him  if  he  knew  the  meaning  of  that 
name.  I  told  him  that  California  was  covered  all  over 
with  such  beautiful  names  as  Los  Angeles,  Santa  Ana, 
Santa  Barbara,  San  Bernardino,  San  Francisco,  San 
Diego,  and  Sacramento  and  that  these  names  meant  the 
City  of  Angels,  the  City  of  Saint  Ann^e,  Saint  Barbara, 
Saint  Bernard,  Saint  Francis,  Saint  James,  and  the 
Place  of  Sacraments.  The  little  boy  stood  with  open 
eyes  and  ears;  he  was  silent  for  a  moment,  and  then 
with  an  awe  in  his  voice  he  said,  "I  never  heard  any 
folks  talk  about  these  things;  no  one  ever  told  me 
about  that  before."  This  was  in  the  forenoon.  Along 
toward  supper  time  I  again  visited  the  tourist  car 
where  the  little  boy  was  traveling,  and  I  found  that 
he  had  filled  the  car  with  this  new  talk.  They  were 
ready  to  tell  me  what  Thomas  had  found  out — that 
he  was  going  to  the  "City  of  Angels,"  and  that  the 
cities  of  California  were  named  after  good  men  and 


THE  GREATEST  GIFT  367 

good  women,  because  good  priests,  missionaries  of  the 
Christ,  had  taken  possession  of  that  country  many, 
many  years  ago  in  the  interest  of  God  and  humanity. 

Is  not  this  the  lesson  we  need  to  learn  everywhere? 
Let  us  talk  and  think  of  this  world  as  fit  for  angels, 
of  this  country  as  the  home  of  saints,  for  wherever, 
on  farm  or  in  the  city,  in  the  alley  or  on  the  boule- 
vard, the  hard  thing  is  done,  the  unpleasant  task 
accomplished,  right  served  and  duty  done,  by  girl  or 
woman,  by  boy  or  man,  there  is  saintliness,  there  is 
the  greatest  gift  of  God  made  manifest.  When  that 
is  done  the  doer  is  Saint  Anne,  Saint  Mary,  Saint 
Margaret,  Saint  William,  Saint  John,  or  Saint  James, 
no  matter  what  the  name. 

Following  these  missionaries  have  come  the  men 
of  science  and  the  men  of  trade,  the  missionaries  of 
commerce.  Southern  California  is  being  crowded 
with  millionaires.  They  have  established  their  River- 
sides and  their  Pomonas  (The  Place  of  Apples,)  and 
many  another  new  town  in  the  new  spirit,  and  what 
we  sometimes  boastingly  call  the  "new  man"  and  the 
"new  woman"  are  there. 

Bless  them  all,  but  these  names  will  mar  the 
language  and  the  towns,  and  will  spoil  the  beautiful 
landscapes  of  California,  if  the  dwellers  forget  to 
seek  the  saintliness  which  realizes  that  duty,  not 
beauty,  or  pleasure,  or  plenty,  is  the  greatest  gift  of 
God  to  man  in  California  as  in  Boston,  in  America  as 
in  Judea. 

One  more  and  last  evidence  that  "The  sense  of 


368  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

duty  is  the  greatest  gift  of  God."  Those  who  have  it 
most  are  not  only  those  who  are  most  beloved  in  life 
but  those  who  stay  with  us  after  death,  those  whom 
the  ages  revere,  whose  birthdays  become  national  holi- 
days, whose  centennials  are  more  honored  than  their 
anniversaries,  and  whose  millenaries  are  celebrated 
with  still  greater  gratitude  and  reverence,  because  one 
hundred  years  are  richer  than  one  year,  and  ten  hun- 
dred more  glorious  than  one  hundred. 

Recently  I  spent  four  days  at  the  foot  of  what  is 
called  the  highest  mountain  in  the  United  States  out- 
side of  Alaska.  The  Indians  called  it  Tacoma,  the 
"nourishing  breast."  Vancouver,  the  English  navi- 
gator, called  it  Rainier,  after  an  English  general.  The 
city  of  Tacoma,  near  its  base,  loves  to  call  it  by  its 
Indian  name.  The  rival  city  of  Seattle,  thirty  miles 
farther  away,  jealous  of  its  power  and  attraction, 
insists  on  calling  it  Rainier.  But  it  is  the  same  moun- 
tain by  whichever  name  it  is  called.  All  the  time  I 
was  there  this  mountain  was  hidden  in  clouds.  One  day 
I  saw  its  great  knees,  thighs  and  loins,  wrapped  in  a 
white  blanket.  At  another  time  I  caught  a  glimpse  of 
its  topmost  peak,  glistening  like  a  perfect  "gem  of 
purest  ray  serene"  nearly  fifteen  thousand  feet  above 
the  sea.  I  was  told  that  it  is  always  capped  with 
white,  and  that  when  it  reveals  itself  it  is  a  spectacle 
of  surpassing  beauty.  I  did  not  see  it  but  I  believe  all  I 
heard,  because  the  mountain  was  reflected  in  the  faces 
of  the  citizens  when  they  talked  about  it;  it  glistened 
in  the  eyes  of  those  who  attempted  to  describe  it.     I 


,  THE  GREATEST  GIFT  369 

had  to  take  it  for  granted,  which  I  was  glad  to  do, 
but  those  who  loved  it  and  continually  studied  it  told 
me  how  every  day  in  the  year  it  catches  the  moisture 
of  the  sea,  stores  it  in  great  glaciers  that  slowly  slip 
down  the  mountain  side  to  meet  the  softer,  warmer 
air  which  converts  the  snow  and  ice  into  torrents, 
and  how  these  torrents  gather  themselves  into  great 
streams,  which  now  turn  mighty  mills  and  are  about 
to  be  harnessed  to  great  dynamos  that  will  give  light 
by  night  and  transportation  by  day  to  the  growing 
cities  all  along  Puget  Sound.  They  told  me  how  in 
June  they  could  climb  through  the  great  forests  up 
into  Paradise  Valley  where  thousands  of  flowers  are 
in  bloom,  and  where  one  can  stand  and  place  one 
hand  on  the  snow  and  pick  daisies  with  the  other. 
Thus  the  grim  strength  of  the  mighty  mountain  is 
softened  into  beauty,  carpeted  with  luxury,  and 
clothed  upon  with  usefulness. 

Such  is  the  quality  and  character  of  a  man  who 
through  a  long  lifetime  has  realized  that  "The  sense 
of  duty  is  the  greatest  gift  of  God,"  and  who  has  bent 
his  energies,  consecrated  his  days  and  nights,  dedi- 
cated his  years  in  and  to  the  divine  service  of  the 
right.  Think  of  the  great  man  whom  the  ages  love 
and  the  generations  honor.  There  are  those  who,  like 
Mount  Tacoma,have  accumulated  the  moisture  of  the 
sea,  conserved  it  on  its  high  places  and  given  it  back 
again  through  the  help  of  the  kissing  sun  to  the 
waiting  earth,  causing  flowers  to  bloom,  trees  to 
grow,  wheels  to  turn  and  civilization  to  be. 


370  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Such  were  Channing  and  Emerson,  Luther  and  St. 
Francis,  Socrates  and  Moses,  Buddha,  and,  most  of 
all,  the  benign  Man  of  Nazareth,  the  son  of  Mary 
and  Joseph,  the  Christ  of  history,  the  Jesus  of  our 
love.  Such  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  were  the  Santa 
Anas,  the  Santa  Barbaras,  the  San  Diegos,  and  San 
Franciscos  of  Christian  history.  Thus  each,  in  his 
own  degree,  children  or  men  and  women,  young  or 
old,  weak  or  strong,  in  proportion  as  we  seek  the  right 
and  avoid  the  wrong,  do  the  hard  thing,  welcome  the 
unwelcome  task,  we  shall  know  that  duty  is  the  best 
gift  of  God,  we  shall  know  it  in  the  joy  of  our  own 
souls,  in  the  peace  of  conscience,  and,  what  is  better, 
in  service  rendered,  we  shall  find  our  own  lives  justi- 
fied in  the  fuller  lives  of  others.  Thus  alone  can  we 
know  the  peace  that  passeth  understanding,  the  peace 
that  abideth  now  and  evermore.    Amen. 


A  DARING  FAITH 


THE  SOUL'S  ADVENTURE 

What  fairer  seal 
Shall  I  require  to  my  authentic  mission 
Than  this  fierce  energy? — this  instinct  striving 
Because  its  nature  is  to  strive f 

Be  sure  that  God 
Ne'er  dooms  to  waste  the  strength  he  deigns  impart! 
Ask  the  gier-eagle  why  she  stoops  at  once 
Into  the  vast  and  unexplored  abyss, 
What  full-grown  power  informs  her  from  the  first, 
Why  she  not  marvels,  strenuously  beating 
The  silent  boundless  regions  of  the  sky! 
Be  sure  they  sleep  not  whom  God  needs! 

'T  is  time 
Nezv  hopes  should  animate  the  world,  new  light 
Should  dazmi  from  nezv  revcalings  to  a  race 
Weighed  down  so  long,  forgotten  so  long;   thus  shall 
The  heaven  reserved  for  us  at  last  receive 
Creatures  whom  no  unwonted  splendors  blind, 
But  ardent  to  confront  the  unclouded  blaze. 
Whose  beams  not  seldom  blessed  their  pilgrimage. 
Not  seldom  glorified  their  life  below. 

I  go  to  prove  my  soul! 
I  see  my  zvay  as  birds  their  trackless  zuay. 
I  shall  arrive!  what  time,  zvhat  circuit  first, 
J  ask  not:  but  unless  God  send  his  hail 
Or  blinding  fireballs,  sleet  or  stifling  snozv, 
In  some  time,  his  good  time,  I  shall  arrive: 
He  guides  me  and  the  bird. 

— From  Browning's  "Paracelsus" 


XX 

A  DARING  FAITH 

Let  us  have  faith  that  right  makes  might. — Abraham 
Lincoln 

I  want  first  to  show  that  the  text  which  the  class 
has  offered  me  for  my  sermon  is  found  in  a  very  great 
speech,  was  spoken  by  a  very  great  man,  and  contains 
a  very  great  truth. 

I  cannot  hope  to  give  an  adequate  conception  of 
how  intensely  men,  women  and  children  in  the  United 
States  were  interested  in  political  issues  in  the  winter 
of  1859-60,  when  every  interest  centered  in  the  ques- 
tion of  slavery.  John  Brown  had  been  hung  at 
Harper's  Ferry  late  in  the  preceding  autumn.  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin  had  been  a  classic  in  the  homes  of  the 
North  and  a  terror  in  the  homes  of  the  South  for 
seven  years. 

Elijah  Lovejoy  had  been  martyred  at  Alton  for 
publishing  an  abolitionist  paper;  his  printing  press 
had  been  thrown  into  the  Mississippi  River  and  the 
building  burned  twenty-two  years  before.  At  a  meet- 
ing in  Boston,  called  to  protest  against  this  martyr- 
dom, Wendell  Phillips,  a  brilliant  young  lawyer,  had 
made  his  maiden  speech,  and  William  Ellery  Chan- 
ning,  the  saintly  preacher  of  Boston,  had  for  the  first 
time  taken  his  stand  and  been  counted  for  liberty. 
Under  this  inspiration  James  Russell  Lowell  had 
written  his  "Present  Crisis"  in  which  he  said : 

373 


374  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Once  to  every  man  and  nation  comes  the  moment  to  decide, 
In  the   strife   of   Truth   with    Falsehood,    for   the   good   or 
evil  side. 

Theodore  Parker  had  defied  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law 
and  had  helped  to  conceal  and  otherwise  protect  fugi- 
tive slaves  from  the  "owners"  who  pursued  them.  In 
the  South  there  was  well-grounded  fear,  anxiety,  and 
indignation.  For  this  intense  feeling  at  the  North 
against  slavery  not  only  menaced  the  commercial 
prosperity  of  the  southern  people  and  threatened  to 
rob  them  of  their  "property,"  but,  what  was  harder  to 
bear,  impugned  the  honest  motives  of  well-meaning 
men  and  women,  charging  with  brutal  propensities  and 
inhuman  conduct  those  who  for  the  most  part  were 
really,  many  of  them,  sensitive,  honest,  religious  citi- 
zens. They  had  inherited  from  the  past  an  evil  insti- 
tution which  they  did  not  create  and  from  the 
entanglements  of  which  they  could  not,  as  they 
thought,  escape. 

Smarting  with  this  insecurity  and  sense  of  wrong, 
the  people  of  the  South  turned  to  the  Democratic 
party  for  protection  and  vindication,  on  the  theory 
that  Democracy  afforded  the  largest  amount  of  per- 
sonal liberty,  the  least  governmental  interference. 
They  asked  to  be  "let  alone."  In  the  North  a  new 
party  which  called  itself  "Republican"  undertook  to 
organize  the  growing  sense  of  justice  and  legalize 
the  safeguards  of  freedom.  This  party  said  in  effect : 
"This  evil  must  not  grow ;  to  it  no  new  territory  must 
be  granted."     And  so,  back  of  the  great  moral  ques- 


A  DARING  FAITH  375 

tion,  "Is  it  right  to  own  slaves?"  lay  the  political 
questions,  "Is  it  right  to  interfere  with  those  who  do 
own  slaves?"  "Is  it  a  national  duty  to  circumscribe 
its  boundaries  and  prevent  its  extension?"  Hence 
"The  Missouri  Compromise,"  "Squatter  Sovereignty," 
"Mason  and  Dixon's  Line,"  "States'  Rights," 
"Dough-faces,"  "Mud-sills,"  "Black  Republicans," 
and  "Secession,"  were  the  familiar  words  to  be  seen 
on  the  front  page  of  every  newspaper;  to  be  heard 
wherever  men  and  women  met  to  talk;  to  be  discus- 
sed everywhere  on  the  platform  and  in  the  pulpit. 

In  the  autumn  of  1858  Stephen  A.  Douglas  and 
Abraham  Lincoln,  two  popular  lawyers  in  the  state  of 
Illinois,  had  met  in  a  series  of  debates  to  discuss  these 
great  questions.  Both  of  these  men  aspired  to  a  seat 
in  the  United  States  Senate.  But  what  began  as  a 
battle  between  candidates  promptly  outgrew  such 
limitation  and  became  a  great  discussion  of  prin- 
ciples, the  greatest  public  debate  of  a  great  moral 
question  on  political  platforms  the  world  has  ever 
known. 

One  of  these  men  was  eastern-born  and  college- 
bred,  already  successful,  wealthy,  fashionable,  a 
gifted  judge  widely  known.  The  other  was  a  child  of 
the  backwoods ;  his  tongue  knew  no  speech  but  Eng- 
lish, and  that  was  spoken  with  a  quaint  accent.  He 
was  an  awkward,  unschooled  child  of  the  West. 
"Backwoodsman,"  "raftsman,"  "rail-splitter,"  were 
the  familiar  words  already  used  concerning  him — 
spoken,  now  in  derision,  and  now  in  loving  admira- 


376  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

tion.  The  Illinois  farmers  who  took  off  their  hats 
and  bowed  respectfully  to  "Judge  Douglas"  slapped 
his  opponent  on  the  shoulder  as  they  greeted  "Abe 
Lincoln,"  whom  they  had  already  learned  to  love  and 
to  call  "Honest  Abe."  But  he  also  had  a  reputation 
on  the  circuit;  he  was  a  power  in  Illinois;  he  had 
served  one  term  in  Congress,  and  his  oldest  boy  was 
in  Harvard  College. 

The  fame  of  the  great  debate  had  traveled  east- 
ward, and  some  young  men  in  Henry  Ward  Beecher's 
church  in  Brooklyn  ventured  to  invite  the  curious 
Westerner,  the  Illinois  rail-splitter,  to  deliver  a  lec- 
ture before  them.  It  was  a  challenge  that  flattered 
and  frightened  the  self-distrusting  lawyer  of  the  Illi- 
nois prairie,  but,  on  condition  that  he  might  speak  on 
a  political  subject,  he  accepted,  and  the  date  was  fixed 
for  February  27,  i860.  Some  months  were  to  inter- 
vene between  the  acceptance  and  the  deliverance,  and 
the  untried  giant,  like  a  mighty  Samson,  bent  him- 
self to  the  task.  The  resources  of  the  libraries  within 
his  reach  were  exhausted;  he  knocked  the  dust  from 
old  pamphlets,  studied  original  documents,  and  turned 
his  face  eastward  with  fear  and  trembling.  On  his 
arrival  in  New  York  he  was  still  further  alarmed 
when  he  found  that  the  place  of  speaking  had  been 
transferred  from  Plymouth  Church  in  Brooklyn  to 
the  hall  of  the  Cooper  Union  in  New  York  in  order  to 
accommodate  the  throng  that  was  to  meet  him.  He 
arrived  two  days  ahead  of  time ;  entertainment  was 
offered  him  at  the  home  of  an  eminent  citizen,  but  he 


A  DARING  FAITH  377 

declined;  he  must  work  on  his  lecture,  which  he 
feared  would  be  a  disappointment  and  a  failure.  He 
was  anxious  lest  the  young  men  who  had  assumed  the 
risk  should  lose  money  on  the  venture. 

At  last  the  terrible  hour  arrived,  and  he  found 
himself  confronted  by  an  audience  that  filled  the  great 
hall  to  overflowing.  It  was  an  audience  of  cultured 
men  and  women,  such  as  had  not  been  convened  in 
New  York  City,  the  papers  said,  since  the  days  of 
Clay  and  Webster.  William  Cullen  Bryant,  the  ven- 
erable poet  and  editor,  presided,  and  men  whose 
names  were  national  household  words  sat  on  the  plat- 
form. Much  has  been  made  by  biographers  of  the 
awkward  figure,  the  ill-fiting  and  wrinkled  garments 
of  the  speaker.  Some  of  the  young  men  on  the  com- 
mittee confessed  they  felt  dismayed  when  first  they 
saw  the  lecturer.  They  were  ashamed  of  his  rustic 
appearance  and  wished  they  might  avoid  the  humilia- 
tion of  appearing  with  him  on  the  platform  in  the 
presence  of  such  a  polite  and  fashionable  audience. 
He  himself  confessed  to  his  old  law  partner  and  sub- 
sequent biographer,  "Billy"  Herndon,  that  for  once 
he  was  greatly  abashed  over  his  personal  appearance. 
He  knew  that  the  new  suit  of  clothes  which  he  bought 
in  Chicago  on  his  way  east  had  become  badly  wrinkled 
in  his  valise;  the  collar  of  his  coat  would  not  stay 
down,  and  this  consciousness  of  the  difference  between 
his  clothes  and  the  neatly  fitting  suits  of  the  chairman 
and  the  other  gentlemen  on  the  platform  disturbed 
him  as  he  began  to  speak. 


378  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

It  is  a  grateful  office  that  I  perform  in  introducing  to  you 
an  eminent  citizen  of  the  West,  hitherto  known  to  you  only  by 
reputation, 

was    Mr.    Bryant's    introduction.      Next   day    in    his 
paper,  the  Evening  Post,  Mr,  Bryant  said : 

For  the  publication  of  such  words  of  weight  and  wisdom 
as  those  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  the  pages  of  this  journal  are  indefi- 
nitely elastic. 

And  Horace  Greeley  in  the  New  York  Tribune  said : 

He  is  one  of  nature's  orators.  No  man  ever  before  made 
such  an  impression  on  his  first  appeal  to  a  New  York  audience. 

A   Connecticut   minister   was   reported   by   the  Neiv 
York  Tribune  as  saying  to  Mr.  Lincoln  next  day : 

Your  speech  was  the  most  remarkable   I   ever  heard 

Your  illustrations  were  romance  and  pathos,  fun  and  logic,  all 
welded  together. 

Says  another,  as  quoted  in  Noah  Brooks's  Life: 

When  Lincoln  rose  to  speak,  I  was  greatly  disappointed. 
He  was  tall,  tall — oh,  how  tall,  and  so  angular  and  awkward 
that  I  had,  for  an  instant,  a  feeling  of  pity  for  so  ungainly  a 
man.  His  clothes  were  black  and  ill-fitting,  badly  wrinkled,  as 
if  they  had  been  jammed  carelessly  into  a  small  trunk.  His 
bushy  head,  with  the  stiff  black  hair  thrown  back,  was  balanced 
on  a  long  and  lean  head-stalk,  and  when  he  raised  his  hands  in  an 
opening  gesture,  I  noticed  that  they  were  very  large.  He  began 
in  a  low  tone  of  voice  as  if  he  were  used  to  speaking  out-doors, 
and  was  afraid  of  speaking  too  loud.  I  said  to  myself :  "Old 
fellow,  you  won't  do;  it's  all  very  well  for  the  wild  West,  but 
this  will  never  go  down  in  New  York."  But  pretty  soon  he 
began  to  get  into  his  subject;  he  straightened  up,  made  regular 
and  graceful  gestures;  his  face  lighted  as  with  an  inward  fire; 
the  whole  man  was  transfigured.  I  forgot  his  clothes,  his 
personal  appearance,  and  his  individual  peculiarities.     Presently, 


A  DARING  FAITH  379 

forgetting  myself,  I  was  on  my  feet  with  the  rest,  yelling  like 
a  wild  Indian,  cheering  this  wonderful  man.  In  the  close  parts 
of  his  arguments  you  could  hear  the  gentle  sizzling  of  the  gas- 
burners.  When  he  reached  a  climax,  the  thunders  of  applause 
were  terrific.  It  was  a  great  speech.  When  I  came  out  of  the 
hall,  my  face  aglow  with  excitement  and  my  frame  all  a-quiver, 
a  friend,  with  his  eyes  aglow,  asked  me  what  I  thought  of  Abe 
Lincoln,  the  rail-splitter.  I  said:  "He's  the  greatest  man  since 
St.  Paul."     And  I  think  so  yet. 

Said  Henry  M.  Field,  one  of  New  York's  great 
citizens,  whom  the  nation  honored : 

What  manner  of  man  is  this  lawyer  from  the  West  who  has 
set  forth  these  truths  as  we  have  never  had  them  before? 

Forty  years  after,  Hon.  Joseph  M.  Choate,  then 
Ambassador  to  Great  Britain,  described  his  impres- 
sions of  the  occasion  to  a  great  audience  in  Edin- 
burgh.    He  said: 

The   impression   left   on  my   mind  is   ineffaceable He 

appeared  in  every  sense  of  the  word  like  one  of  the  plain  people 
among  whom  he  loved  to  be  counted.  At  iirst  sight  there  was 
nothing  impressive  or  imposing  about  him,  except  that  his  great 
stature  singled  him  out  from  the  crowd;  his  clothes  hung  awk- 
wardly on  his  giant  frame,  his  face  was  of  a  dark  pallor,  without 
the  slightest  tinge  of  color;  his  seamed  and  rugged  features 
bore  the  furrows  of  hardship  and  struggle;  his  deep- set  eyes 
looked  sad  and  anxious;  his  countenance  in  repose  gave  little 
evidence  of  that  brain-power  which  had  raised  him  from  the 
lowest  to  the  highest  station  among  his  countrymen.  As  he 
talked  to  me  before  the  meeting  he  seemed  ill  at  ease,  with  that 
sort  of  apprehension  which  a  young  man  might  feel  before 
presenting  himself  to  a  new  and  strange  audience  whose  critical 
disposition  he  dreaded 

He   was   equal   to   the   occasion.     When   he   spoke   he   was 


380  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

transformed;  his  eye  kindled,  his  voice  rang,  his  face  shone 
and  seemed  to  light  up  the  whole  assembly.  For  an  hour  and  a 
half  he  held  his  audience  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand.  His  style 
of  speech  and  manner  of  delivery  were  severely  simple.  What 
Lowell  called  "the  grand  simplicities  of  the  Bible,"  with  which  he 
was  so  familiar,  were  reflected  in  his  discourse.  With  no  attempt 
at  ornament  or  rhetoric,  without  parade  or  pretence,  he  spoke 

straight  to  the   point It  was  marvelous   to   see  how   this 

untutored  man,  by  mere  self -discipline  and  the  chastening  of  his 
own  spirit,  had  outgrown  all  meretricious  arts,  and  found  his 
way  to  the  grandeur  and  strength  of  absolute  simplicity. 

Lincoln  did  not  underestimate  his  audience,  and 
he  appreciated  the  significance  of  his  theme.  Next 
morning  the  lecture  was  printed  in  full  in  four  of  the 
New  York  dailies,  and  in  due  time  thousands  and  tens 
of  thousands  of  copies  were  distributed  in  pamphlet 
form,  the  editorial  committee  stating  in  their  preface 
that  it  had  taken  them  weeks  to  verify  some  of  the 
statements  which  had  seemed  to  fall  so  easily  from  his 
inspired  lips.  But  the  investigation  justified  the  state- 
ments. He  had  spoken  carefully  and  had  spoken  the 
truth.  He  had  studied  the  relation  of  slavery  to  the 
history  of  the  United  States  from  the  beginning  to 
that  time,  and  had  forecast  its  future.  He  had  made 
what  will  probably  stand  as  the  greatest  speech  of  his 
life;  he  had  brought  history,  fact,  logic,  poetry,  con- 
science, all  to  the  mighty  climax  in  which  we  found 
our  text  embedded : 

Let  us  not  be  slandered  from  our  duty  by  false  accusations 
against  us,  nor  frightened  from  it  by  menaces  of  destruction  to 
the   government,   nor   of   dungeons   to   ourselves.     Let   us    have 


A  DARING  FAITH  381 

faith  that  right  makes  might,  and  in  that  faith  let  us  to  the  end 
do  our  duty  as  we  understand  it. 

I  think  I  have  said  enough  to  prove  my  first  point, 
that  our  text  is  found  in  a  very  great  speech.  Judged 
by  the  painstaking  labor,  the  careful  research  and 
scholarly  use  of  historic  material,  it  was  undoubtedly 
the  greatest  speech  Lincoln  ever  made;  judged  by  its 
results  also,  it  must  be  ranked  as  probably  his  greatest 
speech.  It  changed  Abraham  Lincoln  of  the  West  to 
Abraham  Lincoln  of  the  nation;  it  made  him  Presi- 
dent. As  one  of  his  biographers  said :  "It  came  near 
being  an  inaugural  address." 

I  need  take  little  time  in  establishing  my  second 
point,  that  the  text  was  spoken  by  a  very  great  man. 
Every  year  adds  to  the  already  extensive  Lincoln 
literature;  every  year  adds  to  his  world-wide  fame, 
pushing  his  name  into  the  dark  and  far  corners  of  the 
world.  "Abraham  Lincoln"  has  become  a  household 
word  in  the  cabin  and  in  the  palace.  Italy,  Russia, 
and  the  far-off  islands  of  the  seas  love  him;  peasants 
sing  his  praises;  philosophers  quote  his  words,  and 
patriots  grow  more  noble  in  thinking  of  him. 

Without  further  delay,  then,  let  us  consider  my 
third  proposition,  that  the  text  contains  a  very  great 
truth — "Let  us  have  faith  that  right  makes  might." 
Right  is  might,  because  right  is  of  God  and  not  of 
man.  The  perpendicular  column  stands  because  the 
laws  of  gravitation  hold  it  in  place.  Tilt  your  column, 
and  it  falls  because  nature  lets  go  of  it;  or  rather, 
nature  pulls  it  down.     The  properly  constructed  arch 


382  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

holds  the  tower  up;  the  more  the  weight  the  more 
secure  it  stands,  because  the  arch  is  made  according 
to  the  principles  of  mathematics.  It  is  as  firm  as  the 
multiplication  table.  Introduce  a  false  element  into 
the  arch,  let  the  circle  deviate  from  Tightness,  and  the 
arch  falls  by  its  own  weight.  You  have  tried  to  crush 
an  Ggg  between  your  hands.  If  you  bring  the  press- 
ure to  bear  at  the  ends,  you  will  fail ;  turn  it  the  other 
way  and  press  on  the  sides,  and  "brittle  as  an  egg- 
shell" is  verified  in  your  hands.  So  powerful  is  right 
because  it  is  a  part  of  the  construction  of  the  uni- 
verse. It  is  ordained  by  the  same  power  that  has 
fixed  the  laws  of  nature.  The  laws  of  right  are  as 
fixed,  sure,  and  inevitable  as  the  laws  which  boil  water 
at  a  high  temperature  and  freeze  it  at  a  low  tempera- 
ture ;  as  the  laws  which  make  water  run  down  hill  and 
steam  to  rise  in  the  air. 

Right  makes  might.  History  is  simply  a  verifica- 
tion of  it.  What  has  become  of  the  great  powers,  the 
mighty  cities,  the  dreaded  conquerors,  that  you  read 
of  in  your  books?  Where  are  Nineveh  and  Babylon? 
Where  are  Alexandria  and  the  crowding  cities  that 
once  made  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  more 
populous  and  more  commercial  than  the  shores  of 
Lake  Michigan  now  are?  They  were  mighty;  they 
were  populous;  they  were  rich;  they  were  terrible. 
Xerxes,  Alexander,  the  haughty  Pharaohs,  and  the 
bloody  Caesars — they  had  all  the  strengths  but  one 
necessary  to  perpetuity,  to  fame,  and  the  glory  that 
fades  not,  and  that  was  the  strength  of  right.     The^ 


A  DARING  FAITH  3^3 

names  of  those  far-off  merchants,  presidents,  and 
mayors,  the  bankers  and  manufacturers,  are  lost,  and 
their  work  and  possessions  are  forgotten,  save  a  few 
antiquities,  broken  rehcs,  scattered  fragments,  that  are 
left  to  tell  us  how  the  mighty  have  fallen.  They  had 
not  the  might  of  the  right. 

Over  against  the  names  that  are  forgotten  or 
remembered  only  in  pity  or  contempt,  put  the  name 
of  a  far-off  prince  who  renounced  the  glory  of  a  court, 
became  a  beggar  for  truth's  sake.  The  latter  suggests 
the  devotions  and  gratitudes,  the  aspirations  and  the 
ideals,  of  five  hundred  and  more  millions  of  men,  for 
it  is  the  name  of  Buddha,  the  pitiful,  the  name  of 
him  who  taught  men  to  be  kind,  merciful,  and  for- 
giving. 

Over  against  the  name  of  Alexander,  who  made 
the  banners  of  Macedonia  terrible,  write  the  name  of 
Socrates,  who  walked  barefooted  in  the  snow  as  a 
private  soldier  in  the  Grecian  army.  His  father  was 
a  stone-cutter;  his  mother  was  a  nurse.  He  spent  his 
time  in  talking  with  the  youths  in  the  market  place; 
he  was  put  to  death  because  of  his  impiety.  But  his 
impiety  represented  his  love  for  truth,  his  devotion  to 
right,  and  after  twenty-four  centuries  his  name  is  the 
greatest  name  in  Grecian  lore.  His  was  the  miglit  of 
the  right. 

The  Bible  of  Christendom,  the  most  sacred  of  books, 
the  textbook  of  the  higher  life,  contains  in  the  main 
the  words  of  humble  men — shepherds,  vine-dressers, 
scribes,  and  fishermen — but  they  spoke  the  truth,  and 


384  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

their  words  survive  pyramids  and  overlay  dynasties. 
Jeremiah  in  exile,  Paul  in  prison,  Jesus  on  the  cross — 
these  represent  the  mighty  ones  of  history,  and  their 
might  lay  in  the  right  which  they  championed. 

But  we  need  no  better  illustration  of  my  third 
point  than  that  offered  in  the  first  and  second  parts  of 
my  sermon.  I  have  said  that  our  text  is  taken  from 
a  great  speech.  Why  great?  Those  who  went 
expecting  to  be  swayed  by  some  quaint  oratory 
called  "western"  were  disappointed;  those  who  went 
expecting  to  be  amused  by  the  humor  of  the  "sad 
man  of  the  Sangamon,"  or  to  be  aroused  by  brilliant 
rhetoric  or  impassioned  zeal,  were  mistaken.  They 
heard  instead  close  reasoning,  careful  analysis  of 
history,  kind  words  for  enemies,  earnest,  sober  appeal 
to  friends.  The  Cooper  Union  lecture  was  great 
because  it  was  unanswerable;  it  was  true,  and  conse- 
quently it  was  powerful;  it  was  an  appeal  to  the 
right,  and  consequently  it  was  mighty. 

As  with  the  address,  so  with  the  man.  At  that 
time  nobody  feared  Abraham  Lincoln.  The  friends 
of  his  opponents  were  almost  ashamed  to  ask  the 
accomplished  Judge  Douglas,  the  courteous  college 
graduate,  the  wealthy  land-owner,  who  went  about 
in  his  private  car,  to  stoop  to  answer  this  rustic  with- 
out polish  and  without  position ;  a  rail-splitter,  a  county 
surveyor,  a  country  postmaster,  and  at  his  largest,  only 
a  congressman  defeated  for  re-election,  and  a  country 
lawyer.  But  because  Abraham  Lincoln  saw  the  right 
and  dared  stand  for  it,  because  he  declared  the  truth 


A  DARING  FAITH  385 

and  stood  up  to  be  counted  for  it,  he  became  the 
mighty,  and  there  is  but  one  name  in  the  honor-roll 
of  the  United  States  to  dispute  with  him  the  glory  of 
being  the  "foremost  American."  We  will  not  make 
rivals  of  Washington  and  Lincoln;  we  will  rejoice 
rather  that  both  of  them  have  the  might  that  belongs 
to  the  right.  They  share  the  affections  of  school  chil- 
dren and  philosophers,  black  and  white,  rich  and 
poor,  because  they  stood  for  the  right. 

But  we  need  not  appeal  either  to  history  or  to 
biography.  Happily,  the  stories  of  Lincoln,  Wash- 
ton,  Socrates,  Buddha,  Paul,  Jeremiah,  and  Jesus  are 
so  familiar  to  us  all  that  we  cannot  help  thinking  of 
them  when  we  think  of  our  text,  "Right  makes 
might." 

But  if  we  had  never  heard  of  any  of  these,  there 
is  that  within  us  which  testifies  to  the  beautiful  truth 
that  right  makes  might.  The  little  child  that  respects 
the  wish,  follows  the  teaching,  obeys  the  behest  of 
those  whom  God  and  man  have  placed  over  him — 
teacher,  father,  and  mother — the  child  that  has  kept 
faith  with  his  parents  and  with  his  conscience,  who 
has  said  "No"  when  a  "Yes"  seemed  so  much  easier 
and  so  much  pleasanter,  is  the  child  that  is  not 
ashamed  to  look  you  in  the  eye;  who  is  not  afraid  to 
meet  father  or  mother,  and  who  is  not  alarmed  when 
summoned  into  the  presence  of  teacher  or  friend. 
The  honest  man  is  not  afraid  of  the  policeman.  The 
true  workman  has  no  occasion  to  evade  the  boss. 
Right  alone  gives  the  might  that  is  lasting;  the  might 


386  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

that  brings  the  pleasure  that  lasts  and  the  peace  that 
abides. 

Emerson  closes  his  searching  essay  on  "Courage" 
■ — an  essay  which  every  boy  and  girl  should  read 
early  in  life  and  reread  on  every  occasion  of  tempta- 
tion, at  every  crisis  where  cowardice  beckons — with 
a  poem-story,  the  "Ballad  of  George  Nidiver,"  the 
California  hunter  who,  with  his  Indian  boy  compan- 
ion, found  himself  confronted  in  a  mountain  gorge 
by  two  grizzly  bears  which 

Rushed  at  them  unawares 
Right   down   the  narrow   dell. 

The  hunter  with  his  one  ball  saved  the  fleeing  boy 
from  the  bear  that  pursued  him,  then  unarmed  turned 
to  met  face  to  face  the  other  beast: 

I  say  unarmed  he  stood, 

Against   those    frightful   paws 
The  rifle  butt,  or  club  of  wood, 

Could  stand  no  more  than  straws. 

George   Nidiver   stood   still 

And  looked  him  in  the  face; 
The  wild  beast  stopped  amazed. 

Then  came  with  slackening  pace. 

Still  firm   the  hunter  stood. 

Although   his   heart  beat  high; 
Again  the  creature   stopped, 

And  gazed  with  wondering  eye. 

The  hunter  met  his  gaze 

Nor  yet  an  inch  gave  way; 
The  bear  turned  slowly  round, 

And  slowly  moved  away. 


A  DARING  FAITH  387 

What  thoughts  were  in  his  mind 

It  would  be  hard  to  spell; 
What  thoughts  were  in  George  Nidiver 

I  rather  guess  than  tell. 

Be   sure  that   rifle's   aim, 

Swift  choice  of  generous  part. 
Showed  in  its  passing  gleam 

The  depths  of  a  brave  heart. 

This  poem  indicates  the  might  that  goes  with  the 
right — the  right  that  seeks  the  safety  of  others 
rather  than  its  own;  the  right  that  puts  the  pleasure 
of  others  above  one's  own;  that  finds  companionship 
on  the  road  of  self-denial,  and  comfort  in  service. 

Robert  Browning  tells  the  story  of  the  "Threaten- 
ing Tyrant"  who  used  all  his  ingenuity  to  insult,  to 
degrade,  to  frighten,  to  crush,  a  subject.  But  the 
man 

Stood  erect,  caught  at  God's  skirts,  and  prayed, 

and  lo!  it  was  the  tyrant  who  was  afraid;  he  with  all 
his  armies  and  his  might  trembled,  while  the  helpless, 
friendless,  unarmed  victim  "stood  erect  in  the  strength 
of  God.-"  What  had  he  to  fear?  "Strike  if  you  will, 
but  hear,"  said  Themistocles  to  Eurybiades.  This  is 
always  the  conquering  word  of  the  man  who  stands 
in  the  right. 

Oh,  my  young  friends,  be  not  too  anxious  for 
"company,"  too  solicitous  for  "good  society,"  too 
anxious  lest  you  be  counted  out  from  something  that 
is  going  on,  in  too  great  a  hurry  to  fence  yourselves 
off  in  sects,  parties,  clubs,  cliques,  and  coteries,  fra- 


388  LO\'E  AND  LOYALTY 

temities  and  sororities,  that  you  may  have  more  good 
times.  Think  more  often  of  the  saying  of  Frederick 
Douglass,  the  black  man  and  the  chattel.  "One  with 
God  is  in  the  majority!''  Think  of  the  time  that  came 
to  that  black  man  when,  honored  in  tvvo  continents, 
respected  by  the  noble,  a  leader  of  the  excellent  and  in 
the  interest  of  excellence,  he  went  to  see  his  bed-rid- 
den, pitiable,  degenerate  old  master  who,  in  his  humili- 
ation and  his  shame,  begged  the  privilege  of  shaking 
hands  with  his  former  slave,  knowing  that  the  black 
slave  towered  above  the  white  master  in  all  that  goes 
to  make  the  might  that  is  desirable  and  permanent. 

My  young  friends,  we  have  communed  together 
over  high  things  and  are  not  afraid  of  sacred  words. 
Our  text  deserves  the  help  of  the  noblest  words  that 
human  speech  can  utter.  Right  makes  might  because 
right  is  another  name  for  God,  and  to  have  faith  in 
the  right  is  to  have  faith  in  things  eternal;  faith  in 
the  power  that  holds  the  worlds  together;  the  power 
that  makes  mathematics  exact  and  the  multiplication 
table  permanent;  the  power  that  makes  love  forever 
lovely  and  hate  forever  hateful.  That  is  most  right 
that  is  most  God-like :  that  is  most  just  that  gives  the 
widest  justice  to  all.  He  is  most  powerful  who  is  in 
sympathy  with  and  has  companionship  for  the  widest 
range  of  life. 

On  the  Sunday  following  the  lecture  at  the 
Cooper  Union,  when  all  the  country  was  pondering 
over  the  words  of  wisdom  there  spoken,  a  stranger 
appeared    at    the    Mission    Sunday    School    at    Five 


A  DARIXG  F-\ITH  389 

Points,  then  the  slum  center  of  New  York,  the  home 
of  the  miserable  and  the  degraded.  He  seemed  so 
much  interested,  his  face  beamed  with  so  much  kind- 
liness, that  the  superintendent  approached  and  asked 
him  if  he  would  like  to  say  something  to  the  poor 
little  boys  and  girls  there  gathered,  the  ragged 
urchins  of  the  alleys.  The  strange,  curious  man  ac- 
cepted, but  even  the  gamins  soon  stopped  laughing. 
They  were  charmed  by  his  voice,  touched  by  his 
tenderness,  and  when  he  was  about  to  stop,  apologiz- 
ing for  the  intrusion,  the  little  ragged  children  cried 
"Go  on!  Go  on!  Please  go  on!"'  And  when  at 
last  the  stranger  stopped,  there  was  an  awed  silence 
throughout  the  crowded  room.  Said  the  superin- 
tendent as  the  stranger  passed  out,  "Please,  sir,  may 
I  know  your  name?"  "I  am  Abraham  Lincoln,  of 
Illinois,"  was  the  reply. 

The  tender  heart  and  the  true  conscience  that  on 
Friday  night  thrilled  poets  and  statesmen  and  charmed 
cultured  ladies  and  gentlemen,  on  Sunday  morning 
held  spell-bound  the  boys  and  girls  of  the  slums,  the 
children  of  the  miserable. 

In  the  dark  days  of  the  horrible  war.  when  asked 
by  the  superintendent  of  the  Christian  Mission  to  pre- 
side at  a  meeting  to  be  held  in  \^'ashington,  he 
declined  for  what  he  called  "sufficient  reason."  but  he 
wrote : 

Whatever  shall  tend  to  turn  our  thoughts  from  the  unrea- 
soning and  uncharitable  passions,  prejudices,  and  jealousies  inci- 
dent to  a  great  national  trouble  such  as  ours,  and  to  fix  them  on 


390  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

the  vast  and  long-enduring  consequences,  for  weal  or  for  woe, 
which  are  to  result  from  the  struggle,  and  especially  to 
strengthen  our  reliance  on  the  Supreme  Being  for  the  final 
triumph  of  the  right,  can  not  but  be  well  for  us  all. 

In  one  of  his  messages  to  Congress  he  said : 

We  cannot  escape  history;  no  personal  significance  or  insig- 
nificance can  spare  one  or  another  of  us.  The  very  trial 
through  which  we  pass  will  hold  us  down,  in  honor  or  dishonor, 

to  the  latest  generation We  shall   nobly  save  or  meanly 

lose  the  best  hope  of  earth The  way  is  plain,  peaceful, 

generous,  just, — a  way  which,  if  followed,  the  world  will  for- 
ever applaud  and  God  must  forever  bless. 

It  was  a  dark  and  chilly  day  in  February  when  he 
left  his  Springfield  home  for  the  last  time  as  he  was 
about  to  take  up  the  work  of  President.  From  the 
platform  of  the  rear  car  he  spoke  to  his  old  friends 
and  neighbors.  He  there  revealed  his  devout  heart 
and  his  religious  spirit.  He  spoke  of  the  "task  more 
difficult  than  that  which  devolved  on  Washington," 
and  his  belief  that  the  Almighty  arm  that  protected 
Washington  would  support  him  and  that  he  should 
succeed.     He  said : 

Let  us  pray  that  the  God  of  our  fathers  may  not  forsake 
us.  To  him  I  commend  you  all.  With  equal  sincerity  and 
faith,  I  ask  you  to  invoke  his  wisdom  and  goodness  for  me. 

It  is  this  faith  in  God,  which  is  faith  in  goodness 
and  faith  in  right,  that  enabled  him  to  "put  his  foot 
down  firm,"  and  which  made  him  such  a  worthy 
model,  such  an  inspiring  leader. 

Your  motto  is  as  applicable  to  school  children  as 
to  senators;  it  is  as  true  in  the  nursery  as  it  is  in 


A  DARING  FAITH  391 

Congress;  it  applies  to  the  playground  and  the  class- 
room as  it  does  to  the  church  and  the  university. 

You  and  I,  my  children,  have  found  much  pleas- 
ure in  the  legends  of  the  monks  and  in  the  mediaeval 
lore  of  the  church.  Let  the  fancy  of  some  pious 
monk  of  the  long  ago  help  us  to  apply  tYie  high  maxim 
of  the  martyred  President.  A  rustic,  hoping  to  en- 
courage the  activities  of  his  bees,  placed  a  bit  of  com- 
munion bread — the  body  of  the  Christ  as  he  thought 
— in  the  hive,  whereupon  the  little  bees  did  homage 
to  the  sacred  presence  and  proceeded  with  curious  art 
to  build  a  little  waxen  church  to  shelter  the  sacred 
crumb.  They  reared  its  columns  and  shaped  its  altars 
into  wondrous  beauty.  But  when  the  sordid  rustic 
came,  hoping  to  gather  his  added  stock  of  honey,  the 
bees  set  upon  him  and  he  was  glad  to  escape  with 
his  life.  But  when  a  holy  priest  approached,  the 
little  bees  rose  out  of  the  hive  and  soared  above  him, 
making  sweet  and  curious  melody;  and  the  priest 
took  the  noble  structure,  the  little  church  of  the  bees, 
and  placed  it  upon  the  high  altar  of  the  cathedral, 
and  all  the  communicants  in  the  country  around  grew 
more  diligent  in  their  service,  more  simple  in  their 
faith,  stronger  in  the  trust  that  right  makes  might, 
when  they  looked  upon  it. 

We  may  at  least  simulate  the  little  bee,  and,  weak 
and  small  though  we  may  be,  who  knows  how  beauti- 
ful the  altar  we  may  rear  over  this  sacred  crumb,  the 
communion  bread,  representing  the  blood  and  body 


392  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

of  one  of  earth's  martyrs,  one  of  history's  saviors  and 
God's   children? 

"Let  us  have  faith  that  right  makes  might,"  and 
in  that  faith  let  us  go  forth  to  live,  to  serve, — not  the 
few,  but  the  many;  to  rejoice,  not  in  the  pride  of 
aristocracy,  but  in  the  humility  of  democracy;  not  in 
the  service  of  self,  but  in  the  service  of  others. 


SECRET   SPRINGS 


Who  shall  ascend  into  the  hill  of  the  Lord? 
And  who  shall  stand  in  his  holy  place? 
He  that  hath  clean  hands,  and  a  pure  heart; 
Who  hath  not  lifted  up  his  soul  unto  falsehood, 
And  hath  not  sworn  deceitfully. 
He  shall  receive  a  blessing  from  the  Lord, 
And  righteousness  from  the  God  of  his  salvation. 

— Psalm  24 :  3-5 


XXI 

SECRET   SPRINGS 

Keep  thy  heart  with  all  diligence;  for  out  of  it  are  the 
issues  of  life. — Proverbs  4 :  23 

The  Bible  is  full  of  heart  texts.  The  heart  was 
a  favorite  figure  of  the  Hebrew  writers. 

Create  in  me  a  new  heart,  O  God,  and  renew  a  right  spirit 
within  me. 

Let  mine  heart  be  sound  in  thy  statutes. 

Let  the  meditations  of  my  heart  be  acceptable  in  thy  sight, 
O  Lord. 

The  fool  hath  said  in  his  heart.  There  is  no  God. 

These  are  some  of  the  Psalmist's  texts. 

Why  doth  thine  heart  carry  thee  away? 

says  the  writer  of  Job. 

My  son  give  me  thy  heart. 

Keep  thy  heart  with  all  diligence;  for  out  of  it  are  the 
issues  of  life, 

says  the  Book  of  Proverbs. 

I  said  in  my  heart,  God  will  judge  the  righteous  and  the 
wicked, 

said  the  writer  of  Ecclesiastes. 

"Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,"  said  Jesus;  while 
Paul  exclaims,  "With  the  heart  man  believeth  unto 
righteousness;"  and  he  further  speaks  of  "the  veiled 
and  unveiled  heart  of  man." 

Now  the  people  of  Israel  were  not  peculiarly  emo- 
tional.    Indeed,   the  prophets  are  suspected,   wrong- 

395 


396  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

fully  perhaps,  of  not  doing  justice  to  the  love  side  of 
relisfion.  So  "heart,"  in  the  Bible  sense,  must  have  a 
broader  meaning  than  that  given  to  it  in  modern 
speech — the  home  of  the  affections,  the  organ 
of  love.  The  "heart"  in  the  Bible  sense  is  the  source 
of  thought  as  well  as  of  feeling;  the  fountain  of 
action  as  well  as  of  love.  It  is  the  core  of  being,  the 
hidden  citadel  out  of  which  come,  unbidden  and  often- 
times uncontrollable,  thoughts,  feelings,  actions.  These 
writers  antedate  the  modern  metaphysics,  convenient 
but  treacherous,  which  divides  the  soul  into  parts  or 
compartments  like  a  modern  post-office,  putting  the 
will  into  one,  the  heart  into  another,  and  the  mind 
into  still  another;  assuming  that  the  power  of  thought 
and  the  power  of  love  and  the  power  of  action  repre- 
sent distinct  elements,  and  occupy  separate  compart- 
ments of  the  soul.  The  ancient  Hebrews  apprehended 
the  profounder  truth  that  the  soul  is  one  and  that  this 
unity  is  concerned  in  every  act.  According  to  this 
thought,  the  heart  is  the  sum  total  of  one's  spiritual 
possessions;  it  is  the  subterranean  source  of  the  foun- 
tain we  call  "life;"  it  is  a  central  citadel  of  being. 

When  wisdom  pleads  with  the  young  man  for  his 
heart,  it  asks  him  for  the  consecration  of  all  his  ener- 
gies. Our  text  pleads  with  the  youth  to  "keep  the 
heart  with  all  diligence,  for  out  of  it  are  the  issues  of 
life."  And  so  the  word  "heart"  here  means  what  we 
mean  by  "affection"  and  more;  what  we  mean  by 
"intellect"  and  more;  what  we  call  the  "will"  and 
more.     It  means  all  these.     It  would  be  well  for  us 


SECRET  SPRINGS  397 

in  these  days  of  science  if  we  would  profit  by  the 
insight  of  the  old  Hebrew  and  remember  that  the 
religion  of  the  heart  means  something  more  than 
emotions,  however  noble.  Love  languishes  without 
ideas.  Ideas  are  to  be  distrusted  when  not  clarified 
by  love. 

When  the  prophet  used  the  word  "heart,"  I  think 
he  meant  something  very  nearly  like  what  we  mean 
when  we  say  "character."  The  "I  do  believe"  of  the 
creeds,  the  largest  conclusions  of  philosophy,  the 
greatest  doctrines,  rattle  like  dry  peas  in  a  pod  in  the 
more  capacious  chambers  of  the  devout  heart.  The 
heart  is  more  than  the  intellect,  and  so  the  rites,  sacra- 
ments and  ceremonies  may  be  important  helps.  But 
the  religious  heart  knows  that  these  represent  but  a 
small  section  of  the  holy  life.  The  heart  says,  "Mis- 
take not  means  for  ends.  Forms  are  beautiful,  but 
religion  is  larger  than  any  or  all  forms." 

And  again,  when  the  advocate  of  the  religion  of 
emotion  breaks  into  his  "Hallelujahs"  and  ecstatic 
"Aniens,"  the  "heart"  protests  against  this  unthink- 
ing rhapsody;  it  realizes  that  unreasoning  love  is 
always  in  danger  of  becoming  unlovely.  A  religion  of 
the  heart  that  ignores  the  religion  of  the  head  weak- 
ens the  heart.  The  central  forces  of  life  cannot  be 
satisfied  with  shouting;  rhapsody  is  not  an  excuse 
for  lack  of  reason. 

The  religion  of  the  heart  is  something  larger 
even  than  "duty."  Life  is  more  than  action;  more 
than  the  courage  to  do;  more  than  high  achievement. 


398  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Duty  must  be  changed  into  joy,  and  effort  must  rise 
into  serenity.  The  great  soul  achieves  much,  but  it 
halos  the  highest  achievement  with  an  atmosphere 
of  trust,  of  peace,  and  serenity.  The  monks  of  the 
olden  time  tortured  the  flesh ;  their  rehgion  called  for 
severe  sacrifices.  The  religion  of  the  heart  protests 
and  says,  "Cheerless  duty  is  undutiful.  Grim  integ- 
rity represents  a  spiritual  defaulter."  The  religion 
of  the  heart  represents  man  in  his  wholeness.  It 
teaches  him  to  love  what  is  fair  with  an  ardor  that 
requires  all  the  strength  of  reason  to  discover  and 
all  the  power  of  the   will   to   interpret. 

"Keep  thy  heart  with  all  diligence;  for  out  of  it 
are  the  issues  of  life."  This  text,  rightly  under- 
stood, asks  for  something  more  than  high  passions 
and  noble  sentiment,  for  unenlightened  passion  ends 
in  passionless  lives.  The  religion  of  the  heart  is 
related  to  the  religion  of  creed,  of  form,  of  emotion, 
of  conduct,  not  as  a  part  opposed  to  a  part,  but  as 
the  whole  related  to  a  part.  To  find  the  beautiful, 
the  good,  the  true,  requires  all  the  resources  of  our 
nature.  True  religion  is  the  all-of-man  permeated 
through  and  through  with  an  all  pervading  sense  of 
God.  This  great  heart  is  interpreted  by  Browning's 
lines  in  Saul : 

How  good  is  man's  life,  the  mere  living!  How  fit  to  employ 
All  the  heart  and  the  soul  and  the  senses  forever  in  joy. 

The  pure  heart,  the  sound  core,  the  strong  spirit, 
finding  good  within,  dares  look  the  universe  in  the 
face,  recognizing  therein  the  features  of  the  Divine. 


SECRET  SPRINGS  399 

Feeling  this  pulsing  power  within,  the  heart  dis- 
covers the  Omnipotent  everywhere;  having  faith  in 
the  least  things  one  dares  not  distrust  the  greatest, 
and  so  the  soul  continues  to  sing: 

Do  I  find  love  so  full  in  my  nature,  God's  ultimate  gift, 
That  I  doubt  my  own  love  can  compete  with  it? 

When,  in  the  language  of  my  text,  I  plead  that 
the  heart  be  kept  with  all  diligence,  I  plead  for 
soundness  at  the  core.  The  love  between  man  and 
woman  not  founded  in  thought  and  justified  by 
judgment,  will  bring  disappointment  and  defeat; 
on  the  other  hand,  no  thinker  can  travel  far  on  any 
lines  of  the  universe  unless  he  be  also  a  lover.  A 
good  thinker  must  be  a  loving  spirit.  John  Stuart 
Mill,  one  of  the  great  thinkers  of  his  age,  marked  a 
new  epoch  in  his  life  when  he  discovered  that  the 
page  before  him  was  moistened  by  tears  that  fell  in 
sympathy  with  the  sorrows  of  another,  though  the 
sorrowing  one  was  but  a  character  in  the  pages  of  a 
novel.  That  service  is  irksome  to  the  laborer  and 
unacceptable  to  the  employer  which  is  not  illumi- 
nated by  thought  and  love. 

"Keep  thy  heart  with  all  diligence."  You  cannot 
do  it,  unless  you  keep  your  head  also;  and  both 
thought  and  feeling  prove  unprofitable  and  unreli- 
able if  they  are  not  harnessed  to  action,  if  they  do 
not  lead  to  conduct.  Acts  are  the  counters  that  repre- 
sent the  currency  deposited  in  the  bank  of  character. 
The  heart,  then,  represents  accumulations  as  well  as 
inheritance;   the   great   gift   bestowed   at   birth   aug- 


400  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

mented  by  the  accumulated  experience,  the  acquired 
aptitudes,  the  interest  on  the  capital  invested.  The 
effort  and  thought  of  your  fore-elders  plus  the  effort, 
thought,  and  love  of  your  own  lives,  represent  your 
heart  capital.  The  father's  struggles  underlie  the 
daughter's  peace.  The  mother's  tears  make  pos- 
sible the  son's  smiles.  Whatever,  then,  increases  the 
dimensions  of  your  being,  adds  to  your  capacity  of 
enjoyment,  enlarges  your  vision,  or  deepens  your  love, 
preserves  and  enriches  your  heart. 

After  the  great  Chicago  fire  in  1871  the  students 
of  Cornell,  wishing  to  do  something  to  renew  the 
life  of  the  stricken  city  and  to  encourage  the  noble 
men  and  women  who  were  demonstrating  that  spirit 
was  more  powerful  than  any  fire  that  can  burn  up 
material  things,  offered  the  great  blacksmith- 
preacher,  Robert  Collyer,  a  thousand  dollars  for  a 
horseshoe  made  by  his  own  hand.  The  now  vener- 
able Mr.  Collyer  tells  how  he  went  into  a  friend's 
smithy  on  the  North  Side,  with  misgivings.  For 
twenty  years  he  had  been  a  stranger  to  the  anvil  and 
he  was  afraid  that  his  hand  had  lost  its  cunning. 
But  the  nerves  and  muscles  had  preserved  their  train- 
ing; the  eye  had  not  lost  its  commanding  accuracy. 
The  shoe  was  readily  formed,  and  the  blacksmith 
neighbor  in  whose  smithy  it  was  forged  pronounced 
it  good.  The  name  was  stamped  into  the  iron,  and  a 
notary  witnessed  to  the  genuineness  of  the  article. 
In  due  time  the  Cornell  boys  sent  their  check  for  a 
thousand  dollars,  and  that  horseshoe  is  now  one  of  the 


SECRET  SPRINGS  401 

coveted  treasures  of  the  Cornell  Museum.  The 
horseshoe  became  so  famous  that  in  due  time  it  led 
to  bringing  across  the  sea  the  little  old  bell  that  used 
to  hang  over  the  Yorkshire  shop  and  summon  the 
'prentice  boy,  "Bobbie  Collyer,"  to  his  tasks.  And 
now  the  bell  summons  hundreds  of  Ithaca  students  to 
their  shop-work  day  by  day,  reminding  them  of  the 
poetry  of  the  crafts,  the  culture  that  lies  in  skilled 
hands,  and  the  dignity  and  fraternity  of  labor.  Not 
every  man  who  can  turn  a  horseshoe  can  sell  the 
same  to  university  boys  for  a  thousand  dollars,  but 
every  man  who  can  make  a  good  horseshoe  is  in 
possession  of  a  power  that  has  cost  more  than  a 
thousand  dollars  and  is  worth  immeasurably  more 
than  the  cost;  for  this  trained  skill  is  an  "issue"  that 
proves  the  well-furnished  heart. 

"Keep  thy  heart  with  all  diligence,"  said  the  old 
Hebrew.  Jesus  called  this  very  heart-keeping  the 
"Gospel" — the  good  news.  In  modern  phrase  we 
call  this  heart-keeping  "character,"  which,  as  Dr. 
Bartol  said,  is  the  "stone  that  cuts  all  other  stones," 
the  diamond,  the  most  useful  as  well  as  the  most 
beautiful  of  gems. 

Robert  Collyer's  horseshoe  is  not  a  solitary  or 
exceptional  product.  See  the  pioneer  on  Dakota's 
bleak  prairie,  building  a  house  into  which  he  is  soon 
to  bring  a  blushing  bride;  see  half-naked  men 
moving  to  and  fro  in  front  of  the  various  furnaces 
filled  with  iron  as  white  and  as  fluid  as  milk ;  see 
grimy    miners    turning    the    creaking    winch    at    the 


402  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

mouth  of  the  murky  coal  pit;  see  the  colored  men  in 
Mississippi,  singing  while  they  plant  and  cultivate 
the  cotton ;  see  the  shepherds  of  Arizona,  in  grim 
seriousness  guarding  their  flocks  from  the  depreda- 
tions of  wolves,  with  no  time  to  be  jolly  over  a  cap- 
tured wolf,  dead  or  alive;  see  the  quarrymen  wrest- 
ling with  granite  blocks,  the  builder  with  bird-like 
poise  walking  the  dizzy  beam  above;  see  the  farmer 
tending  his  cattle,  his  children  feeding  the  chickens, 
his  wife  watching  her  babes.  In  all  these  you  see  a 
sacramental  offering.  In  all  this  work  there  is  a  pre- 
cipitation of  heart.  All  this  output  comes  out  of  the 
unfathomable  depths  of  being  that  give  individuality 
and  personality.  Out  of  these  offerings  little  ones 
are  fed,  clothed,  and  schooled.  The  grimy  sweat  of 
coarsest  labor  is  related  to  the  sacrificial  drops  of 
bloody  sweat  that  fell  from  the  Master's  brow  on 
Gethsemane,  for,  as  Lewis  Morris  sings : 

Well  has  it  been  said  that 

Toil  is  the  law  of  life. 

It  is  the  medicine  of  grief, 

The  remedy  wherefrom  Life  giveth   his  beloved   sleep. 

The  lowest  labor  honestly  rendered  has  in  it  more 
of  religion  than  the  highest  indolence,  because  it 
draws  from  the  hidden  fountain  of  life,  wliich  the 
old  Bible  calls  the  "heart."  Something  of  that  heart 
goes  into  every  effort;  something  of  saving  grace  is 
in  every  projection  of  life.  The  arm,  however  lowly, 
that  wields  the  ax,  uses  the  shovel,  holds  the  plow, 
or  drops  the  seed,  is  engaged  in  a  priestly  function. 


SECRET  SPRINGS  403 

But  there  is  something  more  to  be  said  about  this 
labor. 

Not  Robert  Collyer's  horseshoe  but  his  lecture  on 
"Clear  Grit"  is  the  best  interpreter  of  Collyer's  heart. 
The  highest  issue  from  that  fountain,  so  diligently 
kept,  has  been  his  output  at  the  pulpit,  not  at  the 
forge.  They  who  delve  for  truth  render  higher 
service  than  they  who  bring  up  the  coal  and  iron  out 
of  the  shallower  shafts  of  nature.  God's  bravest 
mariners  sail  on  seas  more  lonely  than  the  Atlantic. 
They  are  the  diviner  cultivators  who  plant  beauty 
and  grow  thought;  they  who 

Midst    misery    and    foul    infected    air 
befriend  the  friendless,  best  represent  that  ritual  of 
love;  they  are  the  issues  of  the  well-kept  heart. 

"Laborare  est  orare"  sang  the  monk  of  St.  Bene- 
dict— "To  labor  is  to  pray,"  but  the  higher  labor 
makes  the  higher  prayer.  So  we  may  well  continue 
the  lines  of  Lewis  Morris  in  his  "Ode  of  Life" : 

Aye,   labor,  thou   are  blest, 

From  all   the  earth   thy  voice   a  constant  prayer 

Soars  upward  day  and  night; 

A  voice  of  aspiration  after  right; 

A  voice  of  effort  yearning  for  its  rest; 

A  voice  of  high  hope  conquering  despair. 

When  we  think  of  these  issues  of  the  human 
heart  as  the  offerings  of  religion,  we  realize  how 
much  more  piety  there  is  in  the  world  than  our 
churches  make  exhibit  of.  More  hymns  of  praise 
are  daily  wafted  heavenward  than  are  in  our  hymn- 


404  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

books.  There  is  more  religion,  more  holiness,  aye, 
more  Christianity  in  the  world  than  the  census  report 
would  indicate.  In  rare  moments  the  heart  knows 
that  all  reality  is  a  revelation  of  God,  all  beauty  is 
heavenly,  all  truth  divine,  all  love  sacred. 

How  are  you  to  guard  this  fountain  of  life,  to 
"keep  the  heart  with  all  diligence"  that  the  issues 
thereof  may  be  more  worthy? 

We,  in  Chicago  have  recently  had  an  opportunity 
of  witnessing  a  beautiful  rendition  of  Wagner's  great 
religious  drama,  Parsifal.  In  this  drama  of  the  soul 
the  greatest  musician  of  modern  times,  if  not  the 
most  synthetic  artist  of  all  times,  made  all  the  fine 
arts — architecture,  painting,  sculpture,  poetry,  and 
music — combine  in  a  supreme  effort  to  reveal  to  the 
heart  the  ideal,  to  move  the  spirit  with  a  holy  pas- 
sion, to  kindle  the  will  with  a  divine  purpose.  This 
drama  that  fascinated  the  eye  and  the  ear,  builds  on 
the  beautiful  legends  of  the  Middle  Ages  which 
sought  through  story  to  teach  the  soul  the  high  les- 
sons of  life. 

The  Holy  Grail  was  the  cup  that  passed  from  lip 
to  lip  at  the  farewell  supper  of  Jesus  and  his  dis- 
ciples; it  was  the  same  cup  that  caught  the  blood  that 
a  few  hours  later  flowed  from  the  pierced  side  of  the 
Crucified  One.  This  cup  and  the  spear  that  pierced 
the  innocent  heart  were  the  holy  relics  entrusted  to 
a  fraternity  of  holy  men  dwelling  on  Mont  Salvat  in 
Spain.  These  sanctities  fed  body  and  soul  and  kept 
the   sacred   brotherhood   joyful,    serene,    triumphant. 


SECRET  SPRINGS  405 

But  Klingsor,  the  evil-minded,  being  refused  admis- 
sion into  the  holy  brotherhood,  reared  on  the  adjoin- 
ing mountain  his  palaces  and  gathered  his  followers 
in  the  spirit  of  evil.  In  his  dominion,  black  magic 
triumphed,  as  on  the  adjoining  mount  white  magic 
obtained.  Through  his  wiles,  Amfortas,  the  King  of 
the  Mount  of  Salvation,  yielded,  and  the  spear  was 
lost.  The  Holy  Grail  lost  its  power,  and  Amfortas 
suffered  from  a  wound  in  his  side  that  would  not 
heal.  He  sought  far  and  near  for  remedies,  but  no 
healing  fountain,  no  soothing  balm,  no  potent  simple, 
could  heal  the  wound.  There  was  no  help  save  in 
regaining  the  holy  spear,  and  this  recovery  could  come 
only  by  the  hand  of  one  whose  heart  was  pure,  a  guile- 
less soul.  The  brotherhood  looked  far  and  waited 
long,  until  at  last  Parsifal  came,  a  youth  whom  his 
mother  had  sequestered  in  a  far  off  desert-land  lest  he 
might  hear  the  call  to  knighthood  and  go  forth  and 
be  lost  to  her  as  his  father  had  done  before  him.  But 
the  pageantry  of  knighthood  passed  by;  he  heard  the 
triumphant  blast;  he  saw  the  gallant  riders;  his  heart 
bounded  for  action,  and  he  strayed  far  away  in  search 
of  adventure.  He  appears  within  the  boundaries  of 
Mont  Salvat,  rejoicing  in  the  triumph  of  his  bow  that 
brought  down  a  spotless  swan.  Unwittingly  he  had 
taken  a  life  that  was  esteemed  sacred  by  the  holy 
brotherhood,  but  when  his  heart  realized  the  sacri- 
lege, he  was  moved  with  pity  and  broke  his  bow  and 
flung  it  away.  He  passed  on  his  way  to  serve  his 
apprenticeship,  to  learn  the  role  of  the  true  knight, 


4o6  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

by  enduring  hardships  like  a  good  soldier  and  resist- 
ing the  temptations  of  passion.  At  last  he  ripens 
into  full  knighthood,  with  guileless  heart,  and  recap- 
tures the  sacred  spear.  This  restoration  heals  the 
flowing  wound  in  Amfortas'  side,  the  domain  of 
the  wicked  Klingsor  crumbles,  and  the  regnancy  of 
Mont  Salvat  is  triumphantly  restored. 

The  story  of  Parsifal  is  the  story  of  every 
youth  who  seeks  to  "keep  his  heart  with  all  dili- 
gence." The  lessons  of  this  song-drama  are  many; 
we  will  try  to  count  a  few  of  them. 

The  mother  of  Parsifal,  though  a  holy  woman, 
was  not  wise.  She  could  not  keep  her  son  to  her- 
self or  to  purity  by  exclusion.  Purity  of  heart  comes 
not  through  isolation;  ignorance  is  not  innocence. 
Richard  Wagner  derives  the  name  "Parsifal"  from 
the  Arabic  "Fal"— a  fool;  "Parsifal"— the  foolish 
pure  one.  A  truer  derivation  is  from  the  "Peredur" 
of  the  Welsh  tales  of  King  Arthur,  a  name  which 
means  the  pure,  not  the  silly  or  the  simple.  True 
innocence  is  based  on  wisdom.  Knowledge  is  the 
most  efficient  shield  of  the  pure  heart.  Therefore, 
if  you  would  "keep  your  heart  with  all  diligence," 
go  forth  into  the  world,  take  your  place  in  life. 
Every  new  word  is  a  new  weapon  to  fight  away  the 
evil  forces.  Foolishness  is  irreverence ;  ignorance  is 
impiety;  indifference  rests  in  stupidity.  Train  the 
powers  nature  has  endowed  you  with.  However 
much  abused,  "culture"  is  still  an  indispensable  word 
in  the  vocabulary  of  youth.     The  schoolroom  is  one 


SECRET  SPRINGS  407 

of  the  vestibules  of  the  temple  of  the  Most  High. 
The  true  teacher  is  prophet  and  priest  to  the  grow- 
ing mind.  If  you  would  "keep  your  heart  with  all 
diligence,"  increase  your  store  of  knowledge,  widen 
your  vision. 

"The  learned  eye  is  still  the  loving  one,"  and 
"Growing  thought  makes  growing  reverence,"  says 
Robert  Browning. 

Do  not  mistake  the  simplicity  of  ignorance  for 
the  single-mindedness  of  one  who  at  the  market  of 
life  has  invested  in  the  priceless  treasure,  who,  in  the 
multiplicity  of  opportunities  and  claims,  has  chosen 
the  better  part. 

Again,  Parsifal  must  needs  not  only  sec  the 
world  but  he  must  face  it.  He  cannot  escape  tempta- 
tion; he  must  meet  it.  The  sacred  spear  can  be  held 
only  by  the  developed  arm.  Religion  is  not  a  spasm 
but  a  struggle;  not  the  confession  of  an  hour,  but  the 
travail  of  years.  Conversion?  Yes.  Not  once,  but 
many  times  you  must  turn  and  go  in  the  other  direc- 
tion, and  after  you  have  faced  the  right  way,  you 
must  climb.  Nothing  great  comes  easily;  few  bless- 
ings happen.  The  powers  of  the  soul — of  the 
"heart,"  as  the  Bible  would  call  it — are  more  in 
danger  of  crumbling  from  inactivity  or  dying  from 
dry  rot  than  of  being  wearied  by  a  great  effort  or 
wasted  by  high  endeavor. 

My  young  friends,  do  not  be  deceived.  It  is  not 
easy  for  anyone  to  be  good.  Neither  virtue  nor  ex- 
cellence comes  without  struggle.   Goodness  comes  high 


4o8  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

in  the  world's  market.  Self-control  and  world-control 
come  through  self-denial  and  self-discipline.  "Keep 
thy  heart  with  all  diligence."  This  is  not  a  matter  of 
hoarding,  but  of  investing.  It  is  easier  to  make 
money  than  to  make  character.  It  is  a  shorter  road 
to  wealth  than  to  nobility.  There  are  more  good 
mathematicians,  skilful  chemists,  ready  botanists, 
turned  out  of  our  schools  than  there  are  high-minded 
young  men  and  women.  Effort,  effort,  effort,  and 
more  effort,  alone  brings  Parsifal  to  the  holy  mount. 
Jesus  had  to  carry  his  own  cross  to  Gethsemane,  and 
it  is  very  much  the  same  price  that  you  and  I,  the 
young  and  the  old,  must  pay  for  the  Christly  attain- 
ments. 

After  knowledge  and  after  struggle  comes  the 
cumulative  power  which  we  call  "habit."  The  knights 
of  the  world  serve  long  apprenticeships.  The  vener- 
able guardian  on  Mont  Salvat  lost  his  hope  in  Parsi- 
fal when  he  saw  that  the  boy  was  unmoved  by  the 
holy  mysteries  of  the  sacred  Communion.  He  cast 
him  out,  for  he  reckoned  not  on  the  power  of  growth. 
We  hear  none  too  much  about  the  power  of  a  bad 
habit,  but  not  nearly  enough  about  the  power  of  a 
good  habit.  When  did  the  musician  gain  his  skill? 
Which  one  of  the  ten  thousand  strokes  of  the  ham- 
mer broke  the  cannon's  trunnion?  The  musician's 
skill  came  all  the  way  along.  Every  stroke  of  the 
hammer  contributed  to  the  broken  trunnion. 

Says  E.  P.  Powell,  "Instead  of  man  being  created 
by  God,  he  has  had  for  the  most  part  to  create  himself, 


SECRET  SPRINGS  409 

and  this  he  does  by  slow  accumulation  of  efforts,  by 
steadily  piling  up  attempts,  until  at  last  success 
blooms." 

Habit  is  the  penny  saving-s-bank  which  will  surely 
accumulate  a  fund  equal  to  the  great  emergency.  Oh, 
my  young  friends,  if  you  would  "keep  the  heart  with 
all  diligence"  you  must  become  habitual,  not  in  your 
indulgences  but  in  your  self-control.  We  talk  of 
"confirmed"  drunkards.  Let  us  talk  more  of  "con- 
firmed" abstainers.  You  read  about  the  boy  of 
eighteen  who  is  "addicted"  to  the  tobacco  habit,  as  a 
warning;  let  us  look  at  the  man  of  sixty  who  is 
addicted  to  doing  without  the  dirty  weed,  as  an 
inspiration.  There  is  a  holy  side  to  routine,  a 
saving  grace  in  repetition.  Let  us  make  the  Golden 
Rule  a  habit,  sympathy  a  custom,  truth-telling  auto- 
matic. Let  us  habituate  ourselves  to  the  details  of 
grace — the  heaven-making  "thank  you,"  the  recon- 
ciling "if  you  please,"  spoken  so  often  that  they  come 
to  be  the  armor  and  the  weapons  of  the  heart. 

Would  you  "keep  the  heart  with  all  diligence?" 
Learn  to  transfigure  the  commonplaces.  Experience 
alone  will  teach  you  that  simple  things  are  the  great 
things;  that  near  things  are  the  most  divine. 

This  sermon  is  dedicated  to  the  twentieth  Confir- 
mation Class  of  All  Souls  Church.  For  twenty 
years  the  children  of  these  classes  have  turned 
responsive  faces  up  to  mine.  I  have  seen 
the  pure  light  of  high  intentions,  of  clear 
purposes,   of  human  and  humane  sympathies,   shine 


4IO  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

in  their  eyes.  I  have  watched  them  grow  into  young 
manhood  and  womanhood.  Many  of  them  have 
asked  me  to  speak  the  word  that  consecrated  them 
to  the  high  tasks  of  home-making ;  some  have  brought 
their  children  to  me  for  the  christening  of  the  church 
and  the  dedications  of  rehgion.  I  have  stood  with 
many  of  them  in  their  griefs  beside  open  graves  and 
have  tried  to  speak  words  of  hope  and  consolation 
over  the  silent  forms  from  which  the  spirit  had 
flown;  I  have  watched  the  majority  of  my  pupils 
go  out  into  the  world  of  haste  and  hurry,  of  social 
anxieties  and  ambitions;  I  have  seen  them  bargain 
for  too  many  "preoccupations,"  too  many  "previous 
engagements,"  too  many  things  to  see  and  to  have, 
to  leave  a  margin  of  time  for  the  routines  of  their 
childhood — the  Sunday  habit,  the  church  relation, 
the  periodic  invitations  to  the  soul,  the  weekly 
inflowing  of  the  tides  of  the  spirit.  I  have  mourned 
over  the  loss  of  what  I  must  believe  to  be  a  benign 
habit,  and  I  wonder  if  the  citadel  of  the  heart  has 
not  suffered  for  want  of  the  "diligent"  keeping  of 
such  helping  and  holy  habits.  It  is  sad  to  see  men 
and  women  in  middle  life  grow  indifferent  to  instru- 
mentalities that  were  life-forming  in  their  childhood 
and  that  will  again,  as  they  hope  and  intend,  prove 
life-giving  in  old  age. 

There  is  saving  power  in  a  gracious  habit, 
and  I  can  think  of  no  one  habit  that  carries  more 
benignity,  safety,  and  inspiration  than  the  systematic 
attendance  and  systematic  support  of  the  co-operative 


SECRET  SPRINGS  41 1 

life  of  the  soul,  the  consecrations  of  self-denial  on 
the  part  of  the  individual  in  the  interest  of  the  larger 
self — the  church  of  the  devout  life. 

I  fear  that  the  menace  of  the  heart  which  brings 
about  this  laxity  of  conduct,  this  indifference  to 
routine,  this  spasmodic  and  chaotic  administration  of 
one's  spiritual  interests,  is  the  result  of  unthinking 
explosions  which  make  of  Kundry  the  most  weird  and 
pathetic  character  in  Wagner's  great  drama.  She  is 
the  Wandering  Jewess  of  the  Christian  legend.  She 
was  the  happy,  beautiful,  winsome  Jewish  girl  who 
laughed  at  the  cross-burdened  Master  on  his  way  to 
Calvary.  That  wanton  laugh  exiled  her  from  the 
communion  of  heaven  and  made  of  her  a  wandering 
witch  throughout  the  ages.  How  many  lives  are 
thus  ostracized  by  the  laughing  demon,  youth's  pas- 
sion for  amusement,  the  love  of  fun  that  drives  out 
the  love  of  truth,  the  tantalizing  appetite  for  a  "good 
time,"  that  never  is  satisfied,  that  never  can  be  satis- 
fied. It  will  never  bring  peace  to  the  soul,  but  rather 
it  makes  joy  forever  a  stranger  to  the  heart. 

Oh,  let  the  undercurrent  of  your  lives  be  serious, 
young  men  and  women,  if  you  would  "keep  the 
heart  with  all  diligence."  Beware  of  the  "fraterni- 
ties" and  the  "sororities"  that  undertake  to  fill  your 
lives  with  joyous  fellowship  by  ostracizing  from 
your  chosen  circles  the  uncongenial,  the  poor,  the 
stupid,  the  over-serious,  aye,  even  those  you  may 
deem  coarse  and  vicious.  Beware,  lest  like  Kundry 
you    become    a    grewsome    wanderer,    an    embodied 


412  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

ghost,  always  yearning  for  the  love  and  companion- 
ship that  are  driven  away  by  the  haunting  laugh.  A 
longing  to  serve  and  to  help  rather  than  a  desire  to 
avoid  and  evade  unpleasant  duties  and  persons  will 
alone  save  you  from  the  damnation  of  Kundry,  who 
was  doomed  to  become  and  remain  at  once  a  laughing 
fiend  and  a  sobbing  penitent,  throughout  unnumbered 
alternations  of  hope  and  despair,  of  flippancy  and 
shame. 

Let  me  name  one  more  safeguard  to  the  citadel  of 
the  heart.  The  most  fatal  diseases  are  atmo- 
spheric. The  sewer-gas  that  rises  impalpable  from  the 
sewer,  the  malaria  that  lurks  in  the  balmy  air  of  mid- 
summer evenings,  the  bacteria  of  smallpox  and  the 
great  white  plague,  assail  us  without  note  of  warning 
to  any  of  our  senses.  Thus  also  are  we  assailed  by 
the  diseases  of  the  spirit.  Look  well  to  the  drainage, 
the  ventilation,  the  atmosphere  of  the  heart.  Oh, 
my  young  friends,  beware  of  the  mephitic  poison  that 
blights  without  warning,  weakens  without  giving 
alarm,  debilitates  the  source  of  life!  Oh,  the  sick 
spirits  that  droop  around  us,  for  causes  hard  to  deter- 
mine because  they  are  so  near,  so  persistent,  so  silent! 
I  have  just  pleaded  for  the  sanitary  value  of  a  church 
habit.  I  close  by  pleading  with  you  to  seek  the  vital- 
izing atmosphere  of  the  best.  Make  friends  with  the 
noblest.  Let  the  young  seek  the  old,  as  the  aged  and 
honored  seek  the  young.  Good  health  is  contagious. 
Frequent  the  uplands  of  the  spirit;  seek  the  mountain 
air.     Health  is,  to  say  the  least,  as  contagious  as  dis- 


SECRET  SPRINGS  413 

ease.  Bask  in  the  sunshine  of  the  noble.  You  can- 
not attend  to  the  moral  drainage,  the  spiritual  ventila- 
tion, you  cannot  control  the  atmosphere  of  the  soul 
by  yourself  any  more  than  you  can  alone  secure  those 
sanitary  conditions  for  the  body.  Keeping  the  heart 
is  more  and  more  a  social  problem.  Morals  and 
religion  are  more  and  more  things  of  the  plural  num- 
ber. 

This,  then,  is  my  last  plea — "Keep  your  heart 
with  all  diligence"  by  seeking  wisdom,  by  facing  the 
problems  of  duty,  by  the  regularity  of  your  quest, 
by  sober  earnestness,  and  by  a  bracing  environment, 
the  companionship  of  nobility. 


THE  ROSARY  OF  A  HOLY  LIFE 


spake  our  Lord:     "If  one  draw  near 
Unto  God — with  praise  and  prayer — 
Half  a  cubitj  God  will  go 
Twenty  leagues  to  meet  him  so. 
He  who  walketh  unto  God, 
God  will  run  upon  the  road. 
All  the  quicklier  to  forgive 
One  who  learns  at  last  to  live." 
— From  Edwin  Arnold's  "Adam  Quitting  Eden" 


XXII 
THE  ROSARY  OF  A  HOLY  LIFE 

He  needs  no  other  rosary  whose  thread  of  life  is  strung 
with  beads  of  love  and  thought. — From  the  Persian 

Six  hundred  and  ninety-four  years  ago  this  very 
day  (April  8,  1906),  the  Httle  Itahan  town  of  Assisi 
was  beautiful  with  flowers.  The  streets  were  gay 
with  bright  costumes.  Nobles  and  peasants  were 
dressed  in  their  very  best.  The  ladies  were  decked  in 
all  their  jewelries  and  fineries,  and  the  girls  marched 
in  procession,  dressed  in  white,  wearing  their  pretty 
gilt  crowns,  to  the  churches  to  celebrate  Palm  Sun- 
day. 

In  this  procession  was  little  eighteen-year  old 
Clara,  the  oldest  daughter  of  Favorino  and  Ortolano 
Sciffo,  one  of  the  most  famed  and  famous  families 
in  the  town.  She  was  a  petted  child,  reared  amidst 
palatial  elegance,  already  famous  for  her  beauty. 
She  was  courted  by  the  accomplished  and  eminent; 
suitors  many  sought  her  hand,  and  her  doting  parents 
urged  the  claims  of  their  favorites.  But  the  stately 
tones  of  the  organ,  the  sonorous  intonations  of  the 
priests  at  the  altar,  the  solemn  prayers  and  the  mystic 
communion,  failed  to  comfort  the  troubled  heart  of 
Clara.  When,  at  the  close  of  the  solemn  mass,  the 
pretty  procession  of  girls  arose,  each  to  receive  a 
palm  branch   to   carry   down   the  cathedral   aisle   in 

417 


4i8  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

token  of  the  triumphal  entry  of  the  Man  of  Nazareth 
into  Jerusalem  on  the  first  day  of  the  week  which 
was  to  end  in  the  mock  trial,  the  loneliness  of  the 
garden  and  the  agony  and  disgrace  of  the  cross, 
Clara  remained  kneeling.  She  had  no  heart  for  the 
pretty  festival.  The  kind  old  bishop,  touched  by  the 
humility  and  bashfulness  of  the  beautiful  girl, 
descended  the  altar  steps  and  with  his  own  hand  put 
into  her  hand  her  palm  branch. 

That  evening  Clara  slipped  away  from  the  ele- 
gance, the  comforts,  the  privileges,  the  love,  and  the 
flattery,  and  what  her  playmates  would  have  called 
the  splendid  times  and  the  high  chances,  and  quietly 
sought  the  simple  friar,  the  friend  of  the  poor,  whose 
searching  words  had  touched  her  heart  with  a  sense 
of  reality  and  filled  her  soul  with  a  hunger  for  useful- 
ness, a  thirst  for  sincerity.  Two  years  before  she 
had  heard  him  preach,  and  his  words  had  awakened 
in  her  young  heart  a  thirst  for  righteousness 
that  seemed  to  make  real  the  Golden  Rule  and  pos- 
sible the  Beatitudes.  During  these  two  years  she  had 
watched  his  work,  and  her  soul  grew  more  and  more 
dissatisfied  with  the  shows,  the  jollities  and  the 
selfishness  of  the  life  she  saw  about  her.  With  this 
good  man  she  had  conferred,  and  he  had  promised  to 
welcome  her  and  to  help  her.  To  this  little  known 
and  unpopular  missionary  of  the  simple  life,  this 
advocate  of  the  down-trodden,  this  enemy  of  sham 
and  opponent  of  tyranny,  the  child  fled. 

The  good  brothers  sang  their  evening  hymns,  and 


THE  ROSARY  OF  A  HOLY  LIFE  419 

Francis,  for  such  was  the  name  of  this  humble 
preacher,  read  the  words  of  Jesus  to  his  disciples. 
The  young  girl  promised  to  try  to  conform  her  life 
to  these  teachings.  She  laid  aside  her  golden  crown 
and,  at  her  request,  the  good  preacher  cut  off  her 
golden  locks  and  conducted  her  to  a  nunnery  an 
hour's  walk  away. 

The  next  morning  her  knightly  father  pursued 
her  in  hot  indignation ;  he  begged  her  to  return, 
coaxed  her,  threatened  her,  but  she  was  immovable. 
But  the  Benedictines  in  whose  nunnery  she  had 
found  shelter  were  frightened,  and  she  was  moved  to 
another  convent.  Two  weeks  later  her  little  sister 
Agnes  followed  her  and  begged  the  privilege  of  join- 
ing her  in  the  quiet  life  of  usefulness  which  she  had 
chosen.  This  time  the  father's  fury  knew  no  bounds. 
With  a  band  of  relatives  he  burst  into  the  convent, 
seized  the  child  of  fourteen  and,  in  spite  of  her  cries, 
they  roughly  dragged  her  away,  but  when  she  fainted 
in  their  arms  they  were  alarmed  and  dropped  the  limp 
body  in  the  field,  leaving  kind  laborers  to  carry  her 
back  to  the  arms  of  Clara. 

There  were  other  women  in  the  town  who  were 
sick  of  the  style,  the  show,  and  the  wickedness  about 
them,  and  one  after  another  came  to  join  Clara  and 
Agnes.  The  good  Francis  helped  them  form  a  com- 
munity, provided  quarters  for  them,  and  .set  apart 
some  of  his  fellow-workers  to  provide  for  their  bodily 
needs.  Meanwhile,  under  the  leadership  of  the  beau- 
tiful  Clara,   the  women   set  themselves  to  work  to 


420  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

visit  the  miserable,  to  nurse  the  sick,  to  keep  clean 
the  altar  cloth,  and  to  spin  the  flax  for  more  linen, 
until  they  unconsciously  grew  into  an  order.  They 
called  themselves  the  "Sisters  of  the  Poor,"  but  the 
world  loved  and  still  loves  to  know  them  by  the 
endearing  name  of  the  "Little  Clares." 

Clara  survived  the  good  pastor,  Francis,  twenty- 
seven  years.  She  lived  long  enough  to  see  his  prin- 
ciples of  poverty  and  submission  distrusted  by  the 
Pope  and  ridiculed  by  the  other  organizations  of  the 
church.  She  lived  to  take  the  place  of  the  great 
leader — St.  Francis  of  Assisi — in  defending  the 
principles  of  simple  living  and  high  service.  Popes 
and  bishops  begged  of  her  to  accept  property,  to  accu- 
mulate riches,  in  order  that  she  might  do  more  good, 
but  she  steadfastly  refused  such  offers,  and  they 
dared  not  oppose  her  judgment  or  over-ride  her  con- 
science. In  her  gray  gown,  fastened  at  the  waist 
with  a  rope,  deeply  hooded  and  with  sandaled  feet, 
she  went  about  blessing  the  suffering,  inspiring  the 
poor,  rebuking,  when  need  be,  and,  as  she  could, 
leading  the  rich  into  the  higher  riches. 

Francis  was  the  great  reformer  in  the  church  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  The  church  soon  canonized  him; 
he  became  "Saint  Francis"  while  Clara  was  still  alive. 
But  alongside  of  the  story  of  Francis  stands  in  his- 
tory the  story  of  "Santa  Clara,"  the  "Little  Sister 
of  the  Poor,"  who  found  freedom  by  escaping  from 
the  gilded  bars  of  wealth,  an  imprisonment  which 
she   compared   to   that   of   the   poor   larks   that   are 


THE  ROSARY  OF  A  HOLY  LIFE  421 

"kept  away  from  the  blue  sky,  which  is  their  home." 
When  she  exchanged  her  silken  gown  for  the  gray 
serge,  her  act  was  not  renunciation  but  freedom; 
the  vow  was  not  one  of  poverty  but  of  hberty — hber- 
ty  to  think  high  thoughts,  to  do  good  deeds,  to  seek 
the  right,  and  to  enjoy  the  companionship  of  the 
truly  noble.  Clara  did  not  seek  salvation  by  wearing 
a  thorny  crown  of  mortification  and  prayer;  she 
sought  the  flowery  path  of  service,  of  daily  useful- 
ness, of  humble  tasks  that  were  worth  doing. 

Says  Paul  Sabatier  in  his  beautiful  Life  of  St. 
Francis : 

Under  the  shade  of  the  olive  trees  of  these  Sisters  Francis 
composed  his  finest  work — that  which  Ernest  Renan  called  the 
most  prophetic  utterances  of  modern  religious  sentiment — "The 
Canticle  of  the  Sun." 

Beautiful  is  the  story  of  Sister  Clara,  the  wealthy 
child  who  chose  to  be  the  "Sister  of  the  Poor,"  and 
found  her  freedom  and  joy  in  loving  deeds  and  high 
thoughts.  But  Clara  does  not  stand  alone.  About 
one  hundred  years  later,  in  another  Italian  town — 
Sienna — there  was  born  a  daughter  named  Catherine 
into  the  home  of  a  dyer,  one  famed  for  the-  fine 
quality  of  his  woolen  fabrics,  which  were  washed  at 
the  village  fountain  by  his  skillful  daughters.  The 
youngest  of  these  was  Catherine,  and  she  became  to 
the  Dominican  Order  what  Clara  was  to  the  Francis- 
can— the  Mother  Superior  of  saintly  women.  Early 
she  saw  visions;  gladly  she  vowed  herself  to  silence 
and  to  service;  she  chose  to  sleep  on  a  pine  board 


422  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

with  a  log  for  a  pillow.  In  a  vision  she  took  a  crown 
of  gold  and  jewels  from  her  head  and  placed  instead 
thereon  a  crown  of  thorns.  To  her  was  given  the 
gift  of  tongues.  Perhaps  she  was  the  first  of  that 
long  line  of  women  who  have  swayed  people  by 
public  speech.  She  became  an  ambassador  at  royal 
courts.  She  faced  bishops  and  popes  and  compelled 
them  to  square  their  lives  by  their  pretensions.  She 
won  her  power  by  renunciation,  and  art  and  poetry 
joined  with  history  in  glorifying  the  life  of  Saint 
Catherine  of  Sienna,  the  poor  girl  who  rose  to  be  a 
power  in  kings'  palaces  and  to  be  a  bishop  of  bishops, 
now  a  guide  and  anon  a  terror  to  cardinals  and 
popes. 

But  not  all  the  saints  of  history  wore  serge  robes, 
lived  in  nunneries,  and  renounced  home  joys.  Thir- 
teen years  after  Clara  was  born  in  Assisi,  Italy,  there 
was  born  into  the  home  of  the  king  of  Hungary  a 
daughter,  Elizabeth.  She  entered  into  the  joys  and 
delights  of  a  palace.  She  had  a  royal  lover  and 
became  a  happy  bride  and  a  devoted  mother,  and, 
through  all  this,  not  in  spite  of  it,  became  the  Mother 
Bountiful,  the  benignant  hand,  the  willing  feet  that 
carried  sunshine  into  hovels,  that  nursed  the  plague- 
smitten,  cheered  the  dying,  sheltered  the  orphan,  and 
encouraged  the  lonely,  in  such  a  fashion  that  she 
is  known  in  history  as  "Saint  Elizabeth."  Church 
lore  abounds  in  stories  of  her.  Charles  Kingsley 
made  her  the  heroine  of  his  "Saint's  Tragedy,"  and 
Edwin  Markham  has  made  her  the  theme  of  one  of 


THE  ROSARY  OF  A  HOLY  LIFE  423 

his  beautiful  poems  called  "Christmas  Banqueting 
Time."    He  tells  us  how 

From  the  towers  came  snatch  of  song  and  many  a  ruddy  shout. 
Elizabeth  was  there  above,  among  her  maiden  band, 
Spinning  the  new-cut  wool  to  warm  the  naked  of  her  land. 

And  at  the  festal  board,  while  others  reveled  in  wine, 
she  rejoiced  in  simple  fare  and  water  from  the  spring. 
Her  husband  thus  proudly  drank  to  her  health: 

"Now,"  cried  the  Duke :     "Not  all  the  saints  have  felt  the  wind 

of  death; 
Come,  drink  to  one  who  walks  the  earth,  my  wife,  Elizabeth; 
And  I  will  pledge  her  beauty  with  this  water  in  her  cup." 
So  stooping  down  he  caught  and  swung  her  golden  goblet  up, 
And  tasted — paused — tasted  again,  for  lo,  it  was  rare  wine ! 
More  strangely  sweet  than  any  juice  pressed  from  an  earthly 

vine. 
"Ho,   varlet,    from   what  pipe   this   wine   and    from   what   cellar 

shelf?" 
"From  good  Saint  Kilian's  well,  sire,  and  I  drew  it  up  myself !" 
She    flushed;    the    table    stared;    the    Duke    looked    foolishly 

about, 
The    hall    so    still    they    heard    far    bells    breaking    the    night 

without. 
Then  up  spoke  Helias  the  Seer :     "I  saw  the  water  poured — 
Saw  too,  an  angel  bending  by  our  lady  at  the  board. 
Pouring  with   courteous   gesture   from   a   flagon  of   red   wine, 
Then    fading    in    the    brightness    of    the    fire-light's    dancing 

shine." 
She  heard  in  glad  amaze :     he  wins  God's  favor  unawares 
Who,    self-forgot    in    brother    love,    a   brother's    burden    bears. 

The  legends  tell  us  that  this  lovely  queen  in  her 
childhood  collected  what  remained  from  the  table, 
saved  from  her  own  repasts,  and  carried  it  in  her 


424  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

basket  to  the  poor  children  of  the  town.  She,  too, 
was  led  from  very  shame  to  lay  off  her  golden  crown 
as  she  knelt  in  devotion  in  the  presence  of  the  thorn- 
crowned  Master.  Once  on  a  severe  winter  day  as 
she  was  carrying  bread,  meat  and  eggs  in  the  skirts 
of  her  robe  to  a  poor  family,  she  met  her  husband 
returning  from  the  chase,  and  when,  half -indignant 
at  her  exposure,  he  demanded,  "What  have  you 
there?"  she  blushingly  opened  her  mantle,  and  lo! 
he  saw  naught  but  white  and  red  roses,  fragrant  and 
beautiful  in  mid-winter.  The  proud  husband  took 
one  from  her  lap,  pinned  it  to  his  bosom  and  said, 
"I  wear  a  rose  of  Paradise."  When  she  moved 
through  the  pest-smitten  hospital,  little  children  clung 
to  her  robes,  crying  "Mutter!  Mutter!"  When  at 
last  her  beloved  husband,  as  a  Crusader,  died  far 
from  home,  she  faded  away;  no  sooner  had  she 
breathed  her  last  than  her  very  couch  was  seized  and 
divided  into  fragments  as  holy  relics,  and  her  burial 
place  became  a  shrine  to  which  German  peasants  still 
go  on  holy  pilgrimages — so  blessed  is  the  life  of 
charity  and  kindness. 

But  not  all  the  saints  of  the  church  are  women. 
Beautiful  as  is  the  story  of  Clara,  the  humble,  of 
Catherine,  the  eloquent,  and  of  Elizabeth,  the  charit- 
able, the  story  of  the  Mother  Church  is  rich  with 
manly  saints,  masculine  heroes,  whose  stories  out- 
shine the  stories  of  warriors,  whose  weapons  were 
more  powerful  than  swords. 

Travelers  in  France  frequently  come  upon  images 


THE  ROSARY  OF  A  HOLY  LIFE  425 

and  paintings  of  an  amiable  saint  carrying  little 
foundlings  in  his  arms  or  perhaps  giving  them 
shelter  and  care  as  they  cluster  at  his  feet.  Here  in 
Chicago,  as  in  most  large  cities,  there  is  a  Catholic 
charitable  organization  whose  special  business  it  is 
to  care  for  neglected  and  helpless  orphans,  under  the 
title  of  "The  Society  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul."  Vin- 
cent was  born  in  Gascony  at  the  foot  of  the  Pyrenees 
three  hundred  and  thirty  years  ago.  His  father  was 
a  poor  farmer,  and  the  child  began  life  as  a  shepherd 
lad.  From  his  childhood  he  was  marked  with  sweet- 
ness and  gentleness.  At  twenty  he  donned  the  serge 
robe  and  the  knotted  cord  and  became  a  Franciscan. 
For  ten  years  he  studied  for  the  priesthood,  and  at 
the  end  of  this  time,  while  on  a  voyage  to  Marseilles, 
he  was  captured  by  some  African  pirates  and  for  two 
years  served  as  a  galley  slave,  sold  from  one  master 
to  another  until  he  became  the  possession  of  one 
whose  wife  had  pity  on  his  gentle  face  and  recog- 
nized his  superiority  and  his  training.  She  asked  him 
to  sing  for  her.  He  choked  down  his  tears  and 
chanted,  "By  the  waters  of  Babylon  we  sat  down  and 
wept."  Master  and  mistress  accompanied  him  to 
Rome  and  gave  him  his  liberty.  He  had  known  the 
wretchedness  of  slavery's  chains,  he  had  known  what 
it  was  to  be  sick,  friendless,  and  forlorn.  He 
returned  to  Marseilles  and  began  his  hfe  of  helpful- 
ness, visiting  the  criminals  in  the  prisons  and  the 
ruffians  on  the  docks.  He  sought  the  wretched  girls, 
the  abandoned  women,  and,  in  the  interest  of  such, 


426  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

instituted  the  benignant  order  of  the  Sisters  of  Char- 
ity, whose  business  it  was  to  visit  the  sick,  the  poor, 
and  the  wicked.  At  last  this  man  who  gave  his  life 
to  the  lowest  was  sought  in  the  counsels  of  the  mighty 
and  at  the  bedside  of  kings.  The  proud  Cardinal 
Richelieu  consulted  him,  and  Louis  XIII  when 
dying,  summoned  him  from  the  bedside  of  galley 
slaves.  He  established  hospitals  for  foundlings,  and 
when  war  and  turmoil  raged  he  preached  peace. 

Of  course  such  a  one  was  soon  canonized,  and 
he  became  "Saint  Vincent  de  Paul"  in  1747,  having 
died  in  the  eighty- fourth  year  of  his  age,  eighty-four 
years  before.  In  Paris  there  is  a  great  church  now 
which  bears  his  name.  It  contains  an  authentic  por- 
trait of  the  old  man  "with  bright,  clear  eye,  broad 
forehead,  silver  hair  and  beard,  which  fill  up  the  out- 
line suggested  by  the  imagination,"  says  Mrs.  Jame- 
son. 

But  the  Catholic  church  holds  no  monopoly  of 
saints.  Before  the  Catholic  church  was,  and  outside 
of  its  pale  in  Christian  history,  there  have  been  gentle 
men  and  strong  women  who  have  strung  the  thread 
of  their  lives  with  beads  of  love  and  thought. 

We  have  but  to  think  of  John  Howard  giving 
his  life  for  prisoners,  of  Dorothea  Dix  growing  old 
in  the  service  of  the  insane,  of  Lydia  Maria  Child, 
who  gleaned  our  text  for  us  in  the  writings  of  the 
Persians,  learned  in  the  religions  of  the  world,  loving 
poetry,  no  mean  poet  herself,  sacrificing  everything 
in  the  interest  of  the  slave,  willing  to  leave  her  place 


THE  ROSARY  OF  A  HOLY  LIFE  427 

among  the  most  cultured  in  the  city  to  nurse  John 
Brown  in  his  prison,  when  he  was  under  sentence  to 
be  hanged.  And  then  think  of  her  who  was  a  few 
weeks  ago  laid  to  rest, — mourned  by  the  nation,  hon- 
ored the  round  world  over,  who  devoted  her  life  to 
an  unpopular  cause,  who  in  her  youth  was  spurned, 
scorned,  arrested,  under  sentence  of  imprisonment — 
all  for  an  ideal,  an  ideal  not  yet  realized.  Susan  B. 
Anthony  argued  well  for  the  enfranchisement  of 
women,  but  Susan  B.  Anthony  herself  was  a  vindi- 
cation of  her  theory,  a  justification  of  her  claim, 
more  powerful  than  anything  she  ever  wrote  or  said. 
Think  of  our  own  Jane  Addams — with  a  little  patri- 
mony that  would  have  enabled  her  to  live  her  life  com- 
fortably, quietly,  easily,  among  her  friends,  but  choos- 
ing to  live  among  the  foreign-born,  the  unlettered, 
the  uncleanly,  and  perhaps  the  coarse,  finding  happi- 
ness in  the  company  of  peddlers,  scrub-women,  sales- 
women, draymen,  and  mechanics;  finding  delightful 
companionship  with  Bohemian,  Italian,  Russian-Jew, 
and  modern  Greek,  over  there  on  Halsted  Street, 
making  of  an  old  dilapidated,  neglected,  abandoned 
mansion  the  center  of  a  group  of  buildings  that  radi- 
ate life,  cheer,  and  joy;  that  attract  the  cultured,  the 
wealthy,  the  traveled — the  most  conspicuous  glow- 
point  in  the  city  of  Chicago. 

Do  not  these  non-Catholics  deserve  the  halo? 
Shall  we  not  say  "Saint  Howard,"  "Saint  Dorothea," 
"Saint  Lydia,"  "Saint  Susan,"  and  "Saint  Jane?" 
Shall  we  not  crown  these,   aye,  many  more,   whose 


428  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

names  have  never  appeared  in  the  newspapers,  who 
have  not  written  themselves  into  our  history,  but  who 
have  "strung  the  thread  of  Hfe  with  beads  of 
love  and  thought" — the  patient  mothers,  the  thought- 
ful uncles,  the  tender  aunts,  the  honest,  honorable, 
happy  men  and  women  ?  Let  us  today  crown  them  all 
with  a  chaplet  of  roses.  All  of  them  should  have 
their  palm  branches  today. 

But  how  does  all  this  apply  to  the  pretty  verse 
from  the  Persian  scripture  which  our  St.  Lydia  Maria 
Child  gleaned  for  us  and  which  we  found,  among 
other  great  texts,  in  her  book  entitled  The  Aspira- 
tions of  the  World? 

The  Rosary  first  meant  "a  wreath  of  roses"  used 
in  decorating  the  loved  and  the  lovely.  Greek,  Egyp- 
tian, Mohammedan,  as  well  as  Catholic,  were  wont  to 
count  their  prayers  by  the  help  of  beads.  Perhaps 
it  was  St.  Dominic,  the  friend  of  St.  Catherine, 
who  first  used  the  rosary  as  a  systematic  help  to  devo- 
tion. He  organized  it  and  made  it  a  part  of  the 
church  ritual.  A  complete  rosary  contains  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  small  beads  separated  into  groups  of 
ten  or  fifteen  by  larger  beads,  and  the  devout  Catho- 
lic, when  he  goes  to  his  prayers,  recites  the  Pater 
Noster,  the  "Our  Father,"  for  each  large  bead  and 
the  Ave  Maria,  the  "Hail  Mary,  full  of  grace,  our 

Lord  is  with  thee; Holy  Mary,   Mother  of 

God,  pray  for  us  now  and  at  the  hour  of  our  death," 
for  each  small  one.  Before  beginning  the  rosary,  the 
devout  make  the  sign  of  the  cross  three  times — once 


THE  ROSARY  OF  A  HOLY  LIFE  429 

to  ward  off  the  devil,  once  to  implore  the  help  of  the 
Holy  Trinity,  and  once  to  bring  to  mind  the  cross  of 
man's  salvation. 

Again,  the  rosary  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  beads 
is  divided  into  three  parts:  The  first  fifty  prayers 
are  to  fix  the  mind  on  the  joyous  mysteries — the 
gladness  of  life;  the  next  fifty  on  the  dolorous  mys- 
teries— the  sins  and  sorrows  of  life;  and  the  last  on 
the  glorious  mysteries — the  hopes  and  triumphant 
immortality  that  await  us. 

We  will  not  say  that  there  is  no  value  in  these 
repetitions.  Words  do  suggests  thoughts.  Reitera- 
tion deepens  mental  impressions.  What  the  figures, 
lines,  and  signs  on  the  blackboard  are  to  geometry 
and  algebra,  that  the  words,  the  notes,  the  intona- 
tions, the  associations,  the  bended  knee,  the  bowed 
head  and  the  counted  beads  may  be  to  the  awaken- 
ing of  conscience,  the  deepening  of  love,  the 
strengthening  of  the  will.  The  wise  men  of  the 
world,  the  great  teachers  as  well  as  the  great  priests 
and  prophets,  have  appreciated  the  value  of  lepeti- 
tion.  The  old  Jew  at  the  close  of  the  Sabbath,  the 
Talmud  tells  us,  would  repeat  the  name  of  Elias,  the 
prophet,  over  and  over  again,  arranging  the  letters  in 
as  many  different  ways  as  possible.  In  the  Hebrew 
the  name  is  spelled  with  five  letters,  and  these  can 
be  arranged  in  one  hundred  and  twenty  different 
ways.  The  devout  Jew  found  peace  and  strength, 
perhaps   ecstasy,   in   pronouncing  the  name   in  these 


430  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

one  hundred  and  twenty  ways,  such  as  EHas,  Ehsa, 
Elsai,  Esail,  Lesai,  and  the  rest. 

The  Mohammedan  has  a  rosary  of  ninety-nine 
beads,  each  one  of  which  stands  for  a  name  of  Deity, 
some  favorite  synonym  of  Allah.  Some  of  these 
are  "The  Merciful,"  "The  Compassionate,"  "The 
Help  in  Peril,"  "The  Creator,"  "The  Dominant," 
"The  Provider,"  "The  All-Knower,"  "The  Loving," 
"The  All-Glorious,"  "The  Truth,"  "The  Firm,"  "The 
Nearest  Friend,"  "The  Ever  Living,"  "The  Guide," 
"The  Patient,"  "The  Right,"  etc.  And  these  the 
devout  Moslem  repeats  over  and  over  again.  It  is 
well;  it  is  their  way  of  chanting  their 

Holy,  holy,  holy,  Lord  God  Almighty ! 

Early  in  the  morning  our  song  shall  rise  to  thee; 

Holy,  holy,  holy,  merciful  and  mighty, 

Who  wert  and  art,  and  evermore  shalt  be ! 

But,    my    children,    these    repetitions  have    their 

dangers.      Jesus   cautioned   his   disciples  against   the 

use  of  vain  repetitions  in  their  prayers.  It  was  this 
danger  that  the  Persian  poet  saw,  perhaps,  when  he 
broke  out  in  the  words  of  my  text, 

He  needs  no  other  rosary  whose  thread  of  life  is  strung 
with  beads  of  love  and  thought. 

A  loving  deed  is  the  best  call  to  prayer,  and  a  high 
thought  brings  God  near.  Our  St.  Lydia  in  finding 
this  text  found  many  others  teaching  the  same  les- 
son. Her  beautiful  little  book.  Aspirations  of  the 
Soul,  is  open  before  me  at  the  page  where  we  found 
our  text.     On  the  same  page  I  read : 


THE  ROSARY  OF  A  HOLY  LIFE  431 

One  came  to  Mohammed,  saying,  "My  mother  has  died; 
What  shall  I  do  for  the  good  of  her  soul?"  and  the  prophet 
replied,  "Dig  a  well,  that  the  thirsty  may  have  water  to  drink." 

On  the  opposite  page  I  read  a  text  from  the 
Koran  which  says : 

One  hour  of  justice  is  worth  seventy  years  of  prayer. 

And  again  from  the  Hindu  Bible  I  read: 

The  Lord  of  Life  should  not  be  worshiped  with  faded 
flowers;  rather  with  those  that  grow  in  thine  own  garden; 
reverence  is   itself   a  flower. 

Thus  I  have  thought  it  best  to  try  to  illustrate 
rather  than  to  analyze  our  text;  to  prove  its  beauty 
and  power  by  the  example  of  men  and  women  who 
have  lived  the  life  of  love  and  thought.  Only  such 
have  entered  into  the  peace  and  joy  of  worship. 
There  are  many  things  we  want,  few  things  we  need. 
Things — much  clothing,  much  jewelry,  the  silks  and 
the  ribbons,  the  carriages  and  the  pianos,  the  com- 
forts and  the  luxuries — may  imprison  us  as  they  did 
sweet  Clara  of  Assisi,  and  the  only  escape  from  this 
prison  is  through  the  gates  of  love,  through  the  por- 
tals of  thought. 

The  hfe  of  trust,  of  joy,  of  reverence,  is  beauti- 
ful. If  the  beads  of  the  rosary  help  us,  let  us  use 
them,  but  the  beads  of  love  and  thought  can  never 
fail.  What  we  love  and  what  we  think — these  shape 
our  prayers. 

Midas,  the  old  king  of  Phrygia,  begged  of  Bac- 
chus that  whatever  he  touched  might  be  turned  to 
gold,    and    Bacchus,    like  a     true    god,    granted    the 


432  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

prayer.  And  alas !  bread  and  wine,  corn  and  apples, 
all  turned  at  his  touched  into  the  cold,  hard,  yellow 
metal  that  would  not  appease  hunger  or  satisfy  thirst. 
He  was  starving  in  his  golden  house,  and  he  prayed 
his  Lord  to  take  back  the  boon.  Father  Bacchus  said, 
"Go  plunge  in  the  stream  that  flows  by  the  city  of 
Sardis,  and  thou  shalt  be  delivered  of  thy  curse." 
And  Midas  was  cured  of  his  greed.  Now  hating 
wealth,  he  served  Pan,  the  shepherd  god;  he  loved 
him  who  could  play  upon  the  reeds,  and  when 
even  Apollo  played  upon  his  lyre,  Midas  claimed 
that  Pan  on  his  pipes  yielded  sweeter  music,  and 
Apollo  punished  his  folly  by  giving  him  the  ears  of 
an  ass.  He  sought  to  hide  his  shame  by  wearing  a 
purple  turban  to  conceal  his  long  ears.  But  the 
barber,  when  he  cut  his  hair,  discovered  the  long 
ears;  he  dared  not  make  public  the  scandal  lest  the 
king  might  behead  him,  but  he  could  not  keep  the 
secret,  so  he  dug  a  hole  in  the  ground  and,  stoop- 
ing down,  whispered  softly,  "King  Midas  has  the 
ears  of  an  ass,"  and  then  he  filled  up  the  hole.  But 
rushes  grew  up  out  of  the  spot  and  whenever  the 
wind  blew  the  reeds  whispered  softly,  "King  Midas 
has  the  ears  of  an  ass."  So  again  he  was  the  victim 
of  his  thoughts,  the  slave  of  his  loves. 

How  important,  then,  my  children,  is  it  for  you 
who  would  be  truly  devout,  peaceful,  joyful,  helpful, 
if  you  would  become  Claras,  Janes,  Francises,  Vin- 
cents, and  Howards  in  the  world,  to  see  to  it  that 
you    string    your    lives    with    "beads    of    love    and 


THE  ROSARY  OF  A  HOLY  LIFE  433 

thought,"  and  thus  fashion  for  yourselves  the  rosary 
of  the  holy  life,  which  is  now,  always  was  and 
always  will  be  the  helpful  life,  the  joyous,  cheerful 
life.     So  may  it  be! 


CHARACTER-BUILDING 


POLONIUS'  ADVICE   TO  HIS  SON  LAERTES 

There;  my  blessing  with  thee! 
And  these  few  precepts  in  thy  memory 
See  thou  character.    Give  thy  thoughts  no  tongue, 
Nor  any  unproportion'd  thought  his  act. 
Be   thou   familiar,    but   by   no   means   vulgar. 
Those  friends  thou  hast,  and  their  adoption  tried, 
Grapple  them  to  thy  soul  with  hoops  of  steel; 
But  do  not  dull  thy  palm  with  entertainment 
Of  each  new-hatch'd,  unAedg'd  comrade.     Beware 
Of  entrance  to  a  quarrel,  but,  being  in. 
Bear  't  that  the  opposed  may  beware  of  thee. 
Give  every  man  thy  ear,  but  few  thy  voice; 
Take  each  man's  censure,  but  reserve  thy  judgment. 
Costly   thy  habit  as  thy  purse  can  buy, 
But  not  cxpress'd  in  fancy;  rich,  not  gaudy ; 
For  the  apparel  oft  proclaims  the  man, 
And  they  in  France  of  the  best  rank  and  station 
Are  most  select  and  generous,  chief  in  that. 
Neither  a  borrower  nor  a  lender  be; 
For  loan   oft   loses  both  itself  and  friend, 
And  borrowing  dulls  the  edge  of  husbandry. 
This  above  all:   to  thine  own  self  be  true. 
And   it  must  follow,   as   the   night   the   day. 
Thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man. 
Farewell;  my  blessing  season  this  iti  thee! 

— From  Shakespeare's  Hamlet,  (Act  I,  Scene  iii) 


XXIII 
CHARACTER-BUILDING 

Above  all,  to  thine  own  self  be  true, 
And  it  must  follow  as  the  night  the  day. 
Thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man. 

— Shakespeare 

Polonius  was  a  garrulous  old  man;  he  narrowly 
escapes  being  a  bore;  but  his  advice  to  his  son,  Laer- 
tes, has  long  since  become  a  classic  in  the  literature 
of  youth.  No  lines  in  Hamlet,  the  greatest  drama 
of  the  greatest  poet,  are  better  known  than  those 
which  you  have  given  me  for  a  text  this  morning. 
It  is  more  than  text,  it  is  a  sermon,  complete  in 
itself,  rounded  and  symmetrical  as  an  egg.  To  break 
an  egg  is  to  spoil  its  beauty  and  symmetry,  but  it 
makes  the  meat  more  available. 

You  have  laid  the  necessity  upon  me  this  morn- 
ing of  breaking  this  Shakespeare  egg.  The  result 
will  be  a  sermon  omelet,  which,  if  properly  cooked 
and  digested,  may  prove  nourishing. 

I  am  glad  that  the  old  man  reminded  the  young 
lad  of  his  responsibility  to  others;  that  he  recognized 
promptly  the  boy's  obligation  to  the  "other  man." 
If  we  are  true  to  our  text,  whatever  we  do  we  must 
not  invade  the  rights  of  others;  we  must  not  prove 
false  to  the  interests  of  our  associates;  we  must  not 
crowd  in  the  game  of  life,  or  poach  on  another's  pre- 

437 


43^  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

serves.  Our  interests  are  identical  with  the  interests 
of  the  community.  My  young  friends,  you  must  play 
fair;  you  must  not  get  in  the  way.  It  is  mean  to 
block  the  wheels  of  the  wagon  in  which  others  must 
ride.  It  is  bad  to  play  tricks.  It  is  dishonorable  to 
snatch. 

Happily  this  is  no  hardship.  There  is  no  fun 
unless  you  observe  the  rules  of  the  game;  there  is 
no  joy  worth  having  that  is  born  out  of  another's 
sorrow.  The  triumph  built  on  another's  defeat  soon 
or  late  proves  to  be  a  failure.  All  fortune  that  brings 
misfortune  to  others  is  most  unfortunate  to  the 
possessor  thereof;  all  such  gains  are  sure  losses. 

Here,  then,  is  the  first  point  of  our  sermon :  The 
true  interests  of  the  individual  are  identical  with  the 
interests  of  the  community.  As  Emerson  says, 
"That  can  never  be  good  for  the  bee  which  is  bad 
for  the  hive."  The  mean  man  is  always  poor;  selfish 
wealth  is  a  curse;  unkind  power  is  a  blight  which 
aggravates  the  misery  of  the  possessor.  The  wealth, 
whether  of  body  or  of  mind,  of  dollars  or  of  ideas, 
that  is  unmindful  of  the  well-being  of  others,  unkind 
to  the  other  man,  adds  to  the  possessor's  poverty, 
leads  to  a  misery  that  over  and  over  again  ends  in 
despair.  Let  him  who  doubts  this  statement  note  the 
record  of  the  suicides  in  the  daily  papers. 

Above  all,  to  thine  own  self  be  true, 
And  it  must  follow  as  the  night  the  day, 
Thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man. 

How  can  this  be  so  ?    Why  should  it  be  so  ?    Why 


CHARACTER-BUILDING  439 

should  not  John  have  the  whole  apple  though  James 
have  none,  if  John  gets  there  first?  Why  should 
not  Jane  have  all  the  silks  she  wants  while  Betty  has 
nothing  but  calico,  if  Jane's  father  has  money  enough 
and  Betty's  father  runs  a  wheelbarrow  by  the  rail- 
road track  which  Jane's  father  owns  and  over  which 
he  rides  in  his  private  car? 

This  is  a  big  question — too  big  to  be  solved  by 
young  heads.  But  sometimes  young  unspoiled  hearts 
may  feel  the  truth  that  is  confusing  to  the  sagacity 
dnd  sophistry  of  older  heads.  You  can  at  least  real- 
ize that  the  man  with  the  wheelbarrow  has  had  much 
to  do  in  making  the  railroad  which  furnishes  the 
money  to  buy  Jane's  silks ;  and  you  can  understand 
that  without  the  man  with  the  wheelbarrow  the  rail- 
road would  soon  become  unsafe  for  the  private  car 
to  run  over;  and  perhaps  the  father  of  the  girl  in 
silks  has  not  played  the  game  fair  with  the  father  of 
the  girl  in  calico.  However  that  may  be,  you  can 
understand  that  the  man  in  the  palace  car  and  the 
man  at  the  wheelbarrow  are  necessary  to  one  another, 
and  that  a  false  note  in  the  one  life  is  an  injury  to 
the  other  life;  and  that  the  highest  efficiency,  the 
greatest  truthfulness  in  one  brings  greatest  profit  to 
the  other.  You  can  also  understand  that  this  is 
because  we  are  so  made  that  we  must  live  in  com- 
munities. We  have  so  many  wants,  so  many  dangers, 
as  well  as  so  many  pleasures,  so  many  and  such 
high  powers  of  enjoyment,  that  we  cannot  get  along 
alone.     The  vulture  which  feeds  on  carrion  flies  by 


440  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

himself  and  gorges  himself  in  solitude.  But  the  song 
birds  fly  in  flocks.  The  wild  ducks  and  geese  fly  in 
squadrons.  The  savage  man  wanders  off  alone  in 
search  of  his  prey;  he  is  content  with  a  small  home 
and  a  narrow  tribe.  But  civilized  man  wants  straw- 
berries in  winter  and  ice  cream  in  mid-summer;  the 
northern  boy  likes  South  American  bananas ;  the 
Cuban  girl  loves  Michigan  apples,  and  there  must  be 
an  exchange  for  their  mutual  benefit. 

Shakespeare  in  our  text  meant  the  same  thing 
that  Paul  did  when  he  said,  "None  of  us  liveth  to 
himself,  and  none  dieth  to  himself."  And  they  both 
meant  the  same  thing  that  Emerson  did  when  he 
said, 

All  are  needed  by  each  one; 

Nothing  is  fair  or  good  alone. 

There  is  great  comfort,  then,  is  there  not,  in  the 
first  point  of  our  sermon — that  our  own  interests  are 
identical  with  the  interests  of  others;  that  there  is  no 
antagonism  between  our  real  interests  and  those  of 
the  other  man ;  that  what  is  best  for  us  is  best  for 
him?  Or,  put  it  the  other  way:  The  very  best  thing 
for  him  is  also  the  very  best  thing  for  us.  If  we  only 
knew  enough,  there  is  no  difference  between  trying  to 
make  the  most  of  ourselves  and  giving  the  most  to 
others,  for  it  amounts  to  the  same  thing. 

But  we  do  not  always  know  enough  to  do  this, 
and  oftentimes  we  make  a  mistake  when  we  say, 
"Never  mind  the  other  fellow ;  I  am  going  to  do  all 
I  can  for  myself,  get  all  the  good  I  can,  know  all  the 


CHARACTER-BUILDING  441 

pleasures  I  may."  So  we  are  thrown  back  on  the  next 
point  of  our  sermon — How  can  I  be  true  to  myself? 
How  may  I  know  what  truth  is? 

John  Ruskin,  one  of  the  best  teachers  of  youth, 
one  of  the  highest  preachers  of  the  true  life  that  ever 
wrote  English,  says,  "There  is  great  likeness  between 
the  virtue  of  man  and  the  enlightenment  of  the  globe 
he  inhabits."  He  was  always  comparing  the  build- 
ing of  a  soul  to  the  building  of  a  house.  Architec- 
ture to  him  was  akin  to  character-building.  One  of 
his  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture  is  "The  Lamp  of 
Truth,"  and  among  the  lies  that  most  menace  the 
integrity  of  the  house  and  the  integrity  of  life,  he 
puts,  not  the  big  falsehoods,  but  the  little  ones.  He 
tells  us : 

It  is  not  calumny  nor  treachery  that  do  the  largest  sum  of 

mischief  in  the  world But  it  is  the  glistening  and  softly 

spoken  lie;  the  amiable  fallacy;  the  patriotic  lie  of  the  his- 
torian, the  provident  lie  of  the  politician,  the  zealous  lie  of  the 
partisan,  the  merciful  lie  of  the  friend,  and  the  careless  lie  of 
each  man  to  himself,  that  cast  that  black  mystery  over  humanity, 
through  vi^hich  we  thank  any  man  who  pierces,  as  we  should 
thank  one  who  dug  a  well  in  a  desert;  happy,  that  the  thirst 
for  truth  still  remains  with  us,  even  when  we  have  wilfully 
left  the   fountains   of   it. 

The  three  primary  "instruments  of  precision"  in 
the  hands  of  the  builder,  the  tools  that  are  absolutely 
necessary,  the  fundamental  tools  of  integrity,  with- 
out which  the  building  cannot  go  up  true,  are  the 
"square,"  the  "plumb-line"  and  the  "level."  These 
are  the  instruments  that  determine  the  integrity  of 


442  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

every  structure.  In  the  builder's  bands  tbe  words 
"true"  and  "rigbt"  are  intercbangeable.  Is  the 
column  plumb?  Is  the  sill  level  ?  Are  the  angles  accur- 
ate? Then  the  building  is  right;  it  is  true.  True  to 
what?  True  to  the  geometry  of  nature.  A  level 
consists  of  just  a  few  drops  of  water  in  a  glass;  but 
it  will  quickly  detect  any  falsehood  in  the  line.  The 
plumb-line  is  simply  a  weight  at  the  end  of  the 
string,  and  the  column  must  run  with  it  or  the  build- 
ing falls.  A  slight  variation  distresses  the  eye;  con- 
tinue the  variation  and  the  building  cracks  from  the 
abnormal  strain;  continue  it  enough,  and  the  building 
falls. 

The  great  monument  in  Washington  to  the  first 
President  lifts  its  point  five  hundred  and  fifty  feet 
into  the  air.  The  last  stone  rests  as  solidly  as  the 
first  course;  the  man  looks  out  from  the  top  window 
as  confidently  and  safely  as  he  does  from  the  lower 
opening,  because  every  stone  was  laid  to  the  level  and 
every  perpendicular  joint  runs  parallel  with  the 
plumb-line. 

So,  if  "to  thine  own  self"  you  would  be  true, 
every  line  must  be  squared,  every  act  must  be 
plumbed,  and  every  motive  be  .  levelled,  not  by 
your  whim,  by  the  artificial  demand  of  society,  by 
arbitrary  convention,  by  what  "they  do"  or  by  what 
"I  wish,"  but  by  the  everlasting  geometry  of  the  uni- 
verse. Honesty  is  a  thing  of  the  multiplication  table; 
the  multiplication  table  is  the  primary  formula  of 
nature;  it  is  the  arithmetic  of  the  stars,  the  geometry 


CHARACTER-BUILDING  443 

of  the  "God  of  things  as  they  are."  Any  attempt  to 
tamper  with  this  is  dangerous;  any  variation  from  its 
standard  is  lying. 

The  Greek  column  has  become  classic  because  it 
was  strong;  it  was  real;  it  was  created  for  a  purpose 
and  served  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  created. 
It  is  true,  and  consequently  beautiful.  But  when  you 
see  the  workmen  on  the  new  county  building  in  Chi- 
cago creating  what  seem  massive  granite  columns 
out  of  thin  stone  slabs  and  putting  them  in  a  position 
where  there  is  no  weight  to  be  sustained,  you  are 
looking  upon  what  is  to  be  a  hollow  sham,  a  granite 
lie,  a  false  bid  for  admiration  that  will  eventually 
be  withheld.  It  is  a  pretense  of  solidity  and  reality 
which  will  strike  inward.  It  will  affect  the  witness  in 
the  box,  the  jury  in  the  panel,  the  lawyer  behind  the 
bar,  the  very  judge  on  his  bench. 

Do  you  ask,  "How  is  one  to  know  what  is  right, 
how  to  detect  the  true?"  There  are  complications 
in  architecture  and  in  conduct  requiring  complex  cal- 
culations and  specifications  drawn  by  an  expert,  but 
in  the  main  the  verdicts  of  the  plumb-line,  the  level, 
and  the  square  are  easily  rendered.  The  eye  is  so 
made  that  it  detects  any  variation  from  the  straight 
line.  The  child  stands  out  from  under  a  leaning 
wall.  The  very  horses  shy  at  a  crooked  building. 
My  horse  Roos  does  not  like  a  leaning  telephone 
pole  by  the  roadside.  Bring  your  conduct  up  to  the 
dictum  of  the  eye,  the  level  of  the  heart;  trust  the 


444  l-OVE  AND  LOYALTY 

square   of   conscience   persistently,    and   you  will   be 
"true  to  thine  own  self." 

Says  Ruskin  again  in  his  chapter  on  "The  Lamp 
of  Truth": 

Do  not  think  of  one  falsity  as  harmless,  and  another  as 
slight,  and  another  as  unintended.  Cast  them  all  aside :  they 
may  be  light  and  accidental;  but  they  are  an  ugly  soot  from 
the  smoke  of  the  pit,  for  all  that;  and  it  is  better  that  our 
hearts  should  be  swept  clean  of  them,  without  ever  care  as  to 
which  is  largest  or  blackest.  Speaking  truth  is  like  writing 
fair,  and  comes  only  by  practice;  it  is  less  a  matter  of  will  than 
of  habit,  and  I  doubt  if  any  occasion  can  be  trivial  which 
permits  the  practice  and  formation  of  such  a  habit. 

How  curious  is  this  interlocking  of  things  and 
deeds,  of  stuffs  and  acts.  The  same  words  are  used 
whether  the  carpenter  means  his  intentions  or  his  door. 
Of  the  one  he  says,  "I  tell  the  truth;"  of  the  other 
he  says,  "It  hangs  true."  The  mason  says,  "That 
joint  is  right,"  and  he  also  says,  "My  bill  is  right." 
The  architect  talks  about  "erecting"  a  building;  your 
preacher  pleads  with  you  for  a  "rectitude  of  char- 
acter." The  young  husband  saves  his  money  that 
he  may  build  a  house.  The  Free  Masons  talk  of  deal- 
ing with  the  brethren  "on  the  square,"  and  President 
Roosevelt  pleads  for  a  "square  deal." 

Build  thee  more   stately  mansions,   O  my   soul, 

says  the  poet. 

Does  it  not  all  mean  that  somehow  the  eye  with- 
in has  been  tutored  by  the  same  forces  that  have  fixed 
the  center  of  gravity;  that  the  conscience  has  been 
squared  by  the  great  Geometer  who  has  ordained  the 


CHARACTER-BUILDING  445 

formulas  of  the  triangle  and  the  circle?  The  prin- 
ciples of  geometry  and  of  ethics  are  so  allied  that  they 
can  use  the  same  diagrams.  The  laws  of  logic,  the 
theorems  of  algebra,  and  the  "Rule  of  Three"  which 
we  used  to  have  in  the  arithmetic  when  I  went  to 
school,  all  come  from  the  same  source.  They  are 
somehow  ordained  by  the  same  power;  they  prove 
each  other. 

We  can  understand  this  relation  better  if  we 
remember  that  the  universe  is  alive;  that  it  is  still 
growing;  that  it  is  not  finished.  Astronomy  is  an 
older  science  than  sociology.  The  planets  had  fixed 
their  orbits  and  were  regular  before  man  began  to 
grope  and  stumble,  to  fall  and  rise  and  fall  again, 
and  still  again  to  rise.  The  scientist  can  calculate  to 
a  second  the  coming  of  an  eclipse,  but  the  best  we  can 
do  in  politics  is  to  guess  at  the  result  of  an  election, 
and  we  often  guess  wrong. 

Boys  and  girls  lead  a  more  uncertain  and  pre- 
carious life  than  do  calves  and  colts,  and  in  the  life 
of  the  boy  and  girl  the  latest  developments  are  those 
of  conscience  and  will.  So  you  must  ask  what  self 
you  are  going  to  be  true  to — the  old,  the  lower,  the 
meaner,  or  the  newer,  the  higher,  the  nobler,  and  on 
that  account  the  self  that  is  most  difficult  to  sustain. 

The  body  has  its  "appendix,"  a  useless  reminis- 
cence of  the  lower  life  that  is  gone.  It  is  often  in  the 
way.  Modern  surgery  finds  it  best  oftentimes  to  cut 
it  out.  So  there  is  often  a  moral  "appendix"  which 
allies  us  to  the  savage,  to  our  brute  ancestry,  which 


446  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

must  be  eliminated  as  soon  as  possible.  Not  only 
are  there  traces  of  the  wolf  and  the  bear  in  our 
natures,  but  of  the  crayfish  which  always  travels 
backwards — the  cowardly  conservatism  in  our 
natures. 

Let  us  not  be  true  to  that  self  but  rather  true  to 
the  forward-looking  instincts  of  the  man,  the  pro- 
phetic yearnings;  true  to  the  scientist,  the  philoso- 
pher, and  the  psalmist,  that  is  beginning  to  start  in 
our  souls,  the  investigator,  the  thinker  and  the  wor- 
shiper; true  to  that  which  asks  questions;  to  that 
which  broods  over  great  problems;  to  that  which 
feels  the  mystery  of  life,  the  divine  presence  within 
and  without. 

The  claws  are  gone  but  the  nails  remain.  To  be 
true  to  our  growing  selves,  we  must  resist 
the  temptation  to  scratch  our  associates.  We  have 
outgrown  horns  and  hoofs,  but  the  doubled  fist  and 
the  booted  foot  are  still  weapons  all  too  convenient. 

"To  thine  own  self  be  true!"  This  we  can  do 
only  by  being  true  to  our  best  inheritance.  Be  worthy 
the  blue  or  black  eyes  that  have  been  handed  down  to 
us  ready-made,  clarified  by  the  tears  of  our  fore- 
elders,  lit  by  the  love  of  our  grandmothers  and  our 
grandfathers. 

Friends,  let  us  be  true  to  the  spiritual  inheritance 
handed  down  to  us  by  generations  of  discoverers, 
conquerors,  and  martyrs;  be  true  to  the  splendid 
tribal  and  national  bequests  that  are  ours;  live  up  to 
the  heroic  of  our  nation.    Are  you  Irish?    Be  true  to 


CHARACTER-BUILDING  447 

the  spirit  of  Emmet  and  O'Connor;  be  as  lyrical  as 
Moore;  as  gentle  as  Goldsmith.  Are  you  Scotch? 
Remember  your  plaid ;  do  not  disgrace  the  Camerons, 
the  MacDonalds,  or  whatever  clan  you  represent. 
Remember  Scott  and  Burns  and  Carlyle;  they  are  a 
part  of  you.  "To  thine  own  self  be  true."  If  Ger- 
man, rejoice  in  the  fatherland,  in  the  uncrowned 
kings  of  the  Rhine-land — Schiller,  Lessing,  and 
Goethe.  It  was  a  French  noble  who  carried  upon  his 
crest,  ''Noblesse  oblige!" — "Nobility  compels!" 
Scandinavia  had  her  Vikings;  England  has  her 
Shakespeare;  the  United  States  has  her  Washington 
and  her  Lincoln. 

Discover  thy  lineage  and  "to  thine  own  self  be 
true." 

''Within  me  there  is  more!''  is  the  legend  inscribed 
on  the  beams  of  an  old  mansion  of  Bruges. 
"Within  me  there  is  more,"  is  written  on  the  beams 
of  the  humblest  soul-mansion — more  than  ancestry, 
more  than  the  venerable  descent  from  monad  through 
monkey  to  man,  the  record  of  which  is  indisputable. 

If  you  would  be  true  "to  thine  own  self,"  you 
must  be  true  to  this  "plus,"  this  spring  propulsion; 
you  must  remember  the  oak  in  the  acorn,  the  apple- 
tree  in  the  apple  seed,  the  harvest  of  July  in  the  sow- 
ing of  April.  To  refuse  to  yield  to  this  push  is  to 
cheat  the  other  man.  Because  this  is  the  hardest 
thing  to  do,  it  is  the  highest  loyalty  to  the  other  man. 

The  mere  hoarding  of  the  treasures  of  the  past 
is  not  the  accumulation  of  wealth.     The  mere  accu- 


448  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

mulator,  the  piler-up  of  things,  or  the  collator  of 
facts,  the  miser,  whether  he  accumulates  gold  or  lore, 
whether  his  accumulations  be  represented  by  dollars 
or  by  books,  is  untrue  to  himself,  to  the  "plus"  in 
his  own  soul. 

Says  David  Starr  Jordan  in  his  last  book.  The 
College  and  the  Man — 

I  know  a  dog  that  has  buried  more  than  a  hundred  bones  in 
his  master's  garden,  and  he  is  not  on  the  whole  very  much 
of  a  dog. 

The  old  value  of  an  education  was  based  on  the 
fact  that  it  helped  one  to  make  a  living.  The  boy 
went  to  school  that  he  might  get  along.  In  the  light 
of  a  newer  thought,  that  is  a  poor  boy  or  a  weak  girl 
who  only  manages  to  "get  along,"  who  is  content  with 
making  a  living,  and  the  more  elaborate  the  "living" 
the  meaner  the  inspiration,  if  it  stop  there. 

In  the  same  book  of  David  Starr  Jordan's,  he 
says  that  the  chancellor  of  the  State  University  of 
Kansas  asked  each  of  the  graduates  of  that  institu- 
tion to  state  the  advantages  that  came  to  them  from 
their  university  life,  as  taught  by  experience.  Several 
of  the  answers  are  given ;  I  like  this  one  much : 

The  gratifying  feeling  that  I  know  at  least  a  little  more 
than  is  absolutely  necessary  for  making  a  living. 
In  so  far,  the  one  who  gave  that  answer  had  been 
true  to  his  higher  self.  This  is  probably  what  we 
mean  by  the  higher  education.  Out  of  that  "little 
more  than  is  needed  to  make  a  living"  comes  the  joy 
and  the  power  of  life,  comes  the  test  of  excellence; 


CHARACTER-BUILDING  449 

therein  lies  character.  That  "a  little  more  than  is 
needed  for  a  living"  is  what  makes  the  prophet  and 
the  bard,  aye,  the  patriot  and  the  martyr.  In  that 
"little  more"  we  find  the  power  of  personality. 

Again  in  this  same  lecture  Starr  Jordan  tells  of 
his  own  experience  as  an  undergraduate  in  the  then 
new  Cornell  University. 

Over  forty  years  ago  there  was  a  small  circle  of 
boys  who  met  together  at  stated  times  to  tell  one 
another  "what  they  had  seen  and  what  they  had  tried 
to  see,"  not  for  the  purpose  of  getting  their  lessons, 
increasing  their  standing,  or  capturing  a  degree.  Out 
of  these  forty  boys  he  calls  the  roll  of  twenty  or  more 
who  are  now  living,  teaching,  inspiring,  in  college 
halls  and  elsewhere.  Those  who  in  the  '70's  showed 
each  other  "birch  blossoms,  bacteria,  blue-bottle 
flies"  etc.,  etc.,  are  now  presidents  and  professors 
in  universities,  scattered  from  Brazil  to   California. 

"To  thine  own  self  be  true."  You  cannot  do  this 
unless  you  give  wings  to  the  "something  more"  with- 
in you.  Take  heed  of  the  beckonings  of  your  better 
nature;  try  your  wings;  learn  the  inspirations  of 
love.  The  power  to  soar,  the  gift  of  flying,  comes 
not  by  nature  but  by  nurture.  It  is  hard  work  to 
keep  ahead  of  the  line.  But  he  only  is  true  to  himself 
who  seeks  it. 

Oh,  it  is  wicked,  very  wicked,  to  kill  a  good  pur- 
pose, to  strangle  a  noble  impulse.  He  who  with 
his  own  hand  runs  a  dagger  into  the  heart  of  a  fellow- 
being  or  into   his   own  heart  is   cowardly.      But  he 


4SO  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

who  stabs  a  great  purpose  to  its  death,  who  kills 
noble  intentions  in  his  own  or  other  lives,  is  the 
basest  of  murderers. 

In  the  Arabian  Nights  is  the  story  of  a  king  who 
was  about  to  buy  live  beautiful  maidens.  They  were 
allowed  to  plead  their  own  cause.  One  of  them 
told  of  two  brothers  in  Israel,  one  of  whom  asked  the 
other : 

"Of  all  the  deeds  thou  hast  done,  which  was  the  most 
wicked  ?" 

"This,"  replied  the  brother.  "I  passed  by  a  hen  roost  one 
day;  I  stretched  out  my  arm,  seized  a  chicken,  and  strangled  it, 
and  then  flung  it  back  into  the  roost.  This  is  the  wickedest 
deed  of  my  life.     What  is   thy  wickedest   action,   O   brother?" 

And  the  second  brother  replied : 

"I  prayed  to  Allah  one  day  to  demand  a  favor  of  him, 
for  it  is  only  when  the  soul  is  simply  uplifted  on  high  that 
prayer  can  be  beautiful." 

And  another  of  the  maidens  said : 

"Learn  to  know  thyself,  O  King.  Do  thou  not  act  until 
then,  and  then  do  thou  act  in  accordance  with  all  thy  desires, 
having  great  care  always  that  thou  do  not  injure  thy  neighbor." 

Now  we  are  coming  into  the  higher  realms  where 
the  truer  self  lives.  To  be  true  to  this  alone  is  the 
only  way  of  escaping  disloyalty  to  other  men. 

Here  is  another  story  from  the  Arabian  Nights, 
as   told  by   Maeterlinck: 

Khali f  Omar,  with  his  venerable  teacher,  Abou-Zeid,  walked 
forth  in  the  darkness  of  the  night,  far  from  his  palace  gate, 
where  he  saw  a  feeble  fire  burning.     He  sought  it  and  found  a 


CHARACTER-BUILDING  451 

poor  woman  trying  to  bring  a  caldron  to  the  boiling  point  while 
two  wretched  children  clung  to  her,  piteously  moaning. 

"Peace  unto  thee,  O  woman !  What  dost  thou  here  alone  in 
the  night  and  the  cold?"  said  the  khalif. 

"I  am  trying  to  make  this  water  boil  that  my  children 
may  drink,  who  perish  of  hunger  and  cold;  but  for  the  misery 
we  have  to  bear,  Allah  will  surely  one  day  ask  reckoning  of 
Omar,  the  khalif." 

"But,"  said  the  disguised  khalif,  "dost  thou  think,  O 
woman,   that  Omar  can  know   of  thy  wretchedness?" 

She  answered :  "Wherefore,  then,  is  Omar  the  khalif  if  he 
be  unaware  of  the  misery  of  his  people  and  of  each  one  of  his 
subjects?" 

The  khalif  was  silent.  "Let  us  go  hence,"  he  said  to 
Abou-Zeid.  He  hastened  to  the  store-houses  of  his  kitchen, 
drew  forth  a  sack  of  flour  and  a  jar  of  sheep  fat. 

"O  Abou-Zeid,  help  thou  me  to  charge  these  on  my  back," 
said  the  khalif. 

"Not  so,"  replied  the  attendant ;  "suffer  that  I  carry  them 
on  my  back,  O  Commander  of  the  Faithful." 

Omar  said  calmly: 

"Wilt  thou  also,  O  Abou-Zeid,  bear  the  weight  of  my  sins 
on  the  Day  of  Resurrection?" 

And  Abou-Zeid  was  obliged  to  lay  the  jar  of  fat  and  the 
sack  of  flour  on  the  back  of  the  khalif,  who  hastened  to  the 
woman  by  the  fire,  and  with  his  own  hands  did  he  put  the  flour 
and  the  fat  into  the  caldron  over  the  fire,  which  fire  he  quick- 
ened with  his  breath,  and  the  smoke  whereof  filled  his  beard. 

When  the  food  was  prepared,  with  his  own  breath  did  he 
cool  it  that  the  children  might  eat.  Then  he  left  the  sack  and 
the  jar  and  went  his  way  saying: 

"O  Abou-Zeid,  the  light  from  this  fire  that  I  have  beheld 
today  has  enlightened  me  also." 

After  all,  my  young  friends,  that  is  the  highest 


452  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

illumination,  the  clearest  light,  which  will  guide  us 
into  the  usefulness  which  is  the  reward  of  the  high- 
est loyalty.  It  is  not  far  away  from  any  of  us ;  it  is  a 
short  walking  distance  from  the  king's  palace  to  the 
widow's  fire  and  the  orphan's  pot  of  thin  soup,  but 
it  is  a  walking  distance;  we  cannot  ride;  we  cannot 
fly  to  the  illuminations  of  disinterestedness ;  we  must 
go  and  carry  our  own  bag  of  flour,  our  own  pot  of 
fat. 

"Always  room  at  the  top,"  do  they  say?  Yes, 
but,  as  President  Jordan  quotes  from  someone,  "The 
elevator  is  not  running."  We  must  climb;  we  must 
keep  going;  safety  is  in  motion,  not  in  standing. 

A  few  weeks  ago  I  rode  on  the  top  of  a  four- 
horse  stage  over  a  giddy  mountain  road  in  Arizona, 
which  was  carved  out  of  the  side  of  the  ledge  of 
Fish  Creek  Canon.  The  road  was  precipitous  and 
winding.  A  few  feet,  and,  at  times,  a  few  inches  of 
deviation  from  the  beaten  track  would  have  precipi- 
tated horses,  stage,  driver,  and  riders  into  the  bottom 
of  the  cafion,  seven  hundred  or  a  thousand  feet 
below.  To  halt,  to  hold  back,  to  stop  there  to  test 
wheels  or  to  tighten  a  girth,  would  have  been  peril- 
ous, might  have  been  calamitous.  But  the  driver 
cracked  his  whip;  the  horses  trotted  gaily  down  the 
royal  road  amid  the  inspiring  scenery,  which  filled 
this  rider,  who  sat  on  the  box  with  the  driver,  with 
songs  and  hurrahs.  The  wheels  had  been  tested  and 
the  girths  tightened  before  the  critical  point  was 
reached.     The  horses  knew  their  olaces;  the  driver 


CHARACTER-BUILDING  453 

knew  the  road;  we  were  all  safe  if  we  kept  going; 
safety  was  in  motion.  Courage  is  in  the  forward 
look.  Keep  going  when  you  come  to  the  precipitous 
places  in  life;  whip  up  and  ride  merrily  along. 

"It  is  looking  down  that  makes  us  dizzy,"  says 
Browning.  Look  up  and  go  ahead.  This  glow,  this 
courage,  this  safety,  this  power,  can  be  represented 
by  no  other  word  so  well  as  by  the  word  "enthusi- 
asm," a  word  coined  by  the  unerring  insight  of  the 
Greek — "eu  Oeo'^ — "God  within." 

Young  John  Ruskin,  to  please  his  lady-love,  wrote 
"The  King  of  the  Golden  River,"  a  delightful  bit 
of  fairy  tale  which  surprised  his  friends  and  delights 
all  readers.  But  the  younger  John  Ruskin,  to  right 
the  wrongs  of  a  maligned  artist,  to  befriend  a  friend- 
less genius,  undertook  the  far  greater  task  of  writing 
his  Modern  Painters,  which  made  Turner  famous 
and  John  Ruskin  the  master  art-critic  in  the  English 
language. 

It  is  only  by  earnest  and  high  service  that  we  can 
be  true  to  that  self  that  is  enriched  by  all  the  past  and 
enkindled  by  the  unmeasured  future. 

Above  all,  to  thine  own  self  be  true, 
And  it  must  follow  as  the  night  the  day, 
Thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man. 


POSTLUDE 

And  the  child  Samuel  ministered  unto  Jehovah 
before  Eli.  And  the  word  of  Jehovah  was  precious 
in  those  days;  there  was  no  frequent  vision.  And  it 
came  to  pass  at  that  time  zvhen  Eli  was  laid  dozvn  in 
his  place  (nozv  his  eyes  had  begun  to  zva.v  dim,  so  that 
he  could  not  see),  and  the  lamp  of  God  was  not  yet 
gone  out,  and  Samuel  zvas  laid  down  to  sleep,  in  the 
temple  of  Jehovah,  where  the  ark  of  God  zvas;  that 
Jehovah  called  Samuel:  and  he  said.  Here  am  I. 
And  he  ran  unto  Eli,  and  said.  Here  am  I;  for  Thou 
calledst  me.  And  he  said,  J  called  not;  lie  down 
again.  And  he  zvent  and  lay  dozvn.  And  Jehovah 
called  yet  again,  Samuel.  And  Samuel  arose  and 
zvent  to  Eli,  and  said.  Here  am  I;  for  thou  calledst 
me.  And  he  anszvered,  I  called  not,  my  son;  lie  dozvn 
again.  Now  Samuel  did  not  yet  knozv  Jehovah, 
neither  zvas  the  zvord  of  Jehovah  yet  revealed  unto 
him.  And  Jehovah  called  Samuel  again  the  third 
time.  And  he  arose  and  went  to  Eli,  and  said,  Here 
am  J;  for  thou  calledst  me.  And  Eli  per-ceived  that 
Jehovah  had  called  the  child.  Therefore  Eli  said 
unto  Samuel,  Go,  lie  dozvn:  and  it  shall  be,  if  he  call 
thee,  that  thou  shall  say.  Speak,  Jehovah;  for  thy 
servant  heareth.  So  Samuel  zvent  and  lay  dozvn  in 
his  place.  And  Jehovah  came,  and  stood,  and  called 
as  at  other  times,  Samuel,  Samuel.  Then  Samuel 
said,  Speak,  for  thy  servant  heareth. 

— I  Samuel  3  :  i-ii 

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